The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

“If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“Burning and torture here lasts but a little while, but if I die with a lie on my soul, I shall be tortured forever. I am innocent.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“Virtue knows no color line, and the chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can command no honest respect.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“Not only is it true that many of the alleged cases of rape against the Negro, are like the foregoing, but the same crime committed by white men against Negro women and girls, is never punished by mob or the law. A leading journal in South Carolina openly said some months ago that “it is not the same thing for a white man to assault a colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged!” Yet colored women have always had far more reason to complain of white men in this respect than ever white women have had of Negroes.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“LYNCHED BECAUSE THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM The entire system of the judiciary of this country is in the hands of white people. To this add the fact of the inherent prejudice against colored people, and it will be clearly seen that a white jury is certain to find a Negro prisoner guilty if there is the least evidence to warrant such a finding. Meredith Lewis was arrested in Roseland, La., in July of last year. A white jury found him not guilty of the crime of murder wherewith he stood charged.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“In nearly all communities wife beating is punishable with a fine, and in no community is it made a felony.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“Lee Walker, colored man, accused of raping white women, in jail here, will be taken out and burned by whites tonight. Can you send Miss Ida Wells to write it up?””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“There can be no possible belief that these people were inspired by any consuming zeal to vindicate God’s law against miscegenationists of the most practical sort. The woman was a willing partner in the victim’s guilt, and being of the “superior” race must naturally have been more guilty.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“for all victims of the terrible injustice which puts men and women to death without form of law. During the year 1894, there were 132 persons executed in the United States by due form of law, while in the same year, 197 persons were put to death by mobs who gave the victims no opportunity to make a lawful defense.””

— Ida B. Wells-Barnett