Ida B. Wells’ Anti-Lynching Crusade
While post-civil war America brought significant improvements in racial prejudice in the
United States, racism in the south was still an ongoing conflict that people like Ida B.
Wells were constantly fighting. Violent lynching and attacks of blacks in Memphis and
other southern cities increased conflict between races and inspired Wells, who firmly
believed in racial equality, to initiate a fierce anti-lynching campaign.
Wells started out in the south believing that she could simply make it a better place for
blacks to live and work. Originally, she was focused on black advancement in the
workplace, but she quickly realized that there were much bigger problems; in 1892, her
dear friend Thomas Moss along with two other African American business owners were
lynched in Memphis, Tennessee for what turned out to be very unethical reasons. The three
men, who owned a grocery store, were threatened and stolen from by white competing
businessmen, and in protecting their store and “carrying on a legitimate business” (Wells,
49), the black men shot at the thieves and injured them. The white newspapers of Memphis
then published articles attacking the African American men and criminalizing them. This
inspired increased violence against blacks, even going as far as the judge of the criminal
court telling the Sheriffs to “take a hundred men, go out to the Curve at once, and shoot
down on sight any Negro who appears to be making trouble,” (Wells, 51). The three men