Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Profoundly inspirational Ida B. Wells quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
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Famous Ida B. Wells Quotes
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press. Ida B. Wells
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. Ida B. Wells Barnett
Somebody must show that the Afro American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. Ida B. Wells
A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience. Ida B. Wells
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
The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd. Ida B. Wells
The matter came up for judicial investigation, but as might have been expected, the white people concluded it was unnecessary to wait the result of the investigation that it was preferable to hang the accused first and try him afterward. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The only times an Afro American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self defense. Ida B. Wells
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
Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter. Ida B. Wells
The miscegnation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. White men lynch the offending Afron American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women. Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. Ida B. Wells
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
Thus lynch law held sway in the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the orderly processes of law took its place. The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West. Ida B. Wells
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
If this work can contribute in any way toward proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Ida B. Wells
In nearly all communities wife beating is punishable with a fine, and in no community is it made a felony. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased. Ida B. Wells
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
I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon. Ida B. Wells
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
I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way so I wrote in a plain, common sense way on the things that concerned our people. Ida B. Wells
The shorter Negro stood gazing at the horrible death of his brother without flinching. Five minutes later he was also hanged. Ida B. Wells Barnett
What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. Ida B. Wells
The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The Afro American is thus the backbone of the South. Ida B. Wells
Then these lynchers went quietly away and the bodies of the woman and three men were taken out and buried with as little ceremony as men would bury hogs. Ida B. Wells Barnett
There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out numbered and without arms. Ida B. Wells
Negro, and also that which was used to lead him from the jail, were eagerly sought by relic hunters. They almost fought for a chance to cut off a piece of rope, and in an incredibly short time both ropes had disappeared and were scattered in the pockets of the crowd in sections of from an inch to six inches long. Others of the relic hunters remained until the ashes cooled to obtain such ghastly relics as the teeth, nails, and bits of charred skin of the immolated victim of his own lust. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes. Ida B. Wells
The next morning the newspapers carried the news that while our meeting was being held there had been staged in Paris, Texas, one of the most awful lynchings and burnings this country has ever witnessed. A Negro had been charged with ravishing and murdering a five year old girl. He had been arrested and imprisoned while preparations were made to burn him alive. The local papers issued bulletins detailing the preparations, the schoolchildren had been given a holiday to see a man burned alive, and the railroads ran excursions and brought people of the surrounding country to witness the event, which was in broad daylight with the authorities aiding and abetting this horror. The dispatches told in detail how he had been tortured with red hot irons searing his flesh for hours before finally the flames were lit which put an end to his agony. They also told how the mob fought over the hot ashes for bones, buttons, and teeth for souvenirs. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro American. Ida B. Wells
I also found that what the white man of the South practiced for himself, he assumed to be unthinkable in white women. They could and did fall in love with the pretty mulatto and quadroon girls as well as black ones, but they professed an inability to imagine white women doing the same thing with Negro and mulatto men. Whenever they did so and were found out, the cry of rape was raised, and the lowest element of the white South was turned loose to wreak its fiendish cruelty on those too weak to help themselves. Ida B. Wells Barnett
The white man’s dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities. Ida B. Wells
Those who commit the murders write the reports. Ida B. Wells Barnett
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. Ida B. Wells
One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap. Ida B. Wells
The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder. Ida B. Wells
There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it. Ida B. Wells
No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to protect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders. Ida B. Wells
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press. Ida B. Wells
The Afro American is not a bestial race. Ida B. Wells
The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press. Ida B. Wells
In fact, for all kinds of offenses and, for no offenses from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same. Ida B. Wells
I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. Ida B. Wells
The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. Ida B. Wells
The lesson this teaches and which every Afro American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro American life. The more the Afro American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched. Ida B. Wells
The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled. Ida B. Wells
The appetite grows for what it feeds on. Ida B. Wells
The South resented giving the Afro American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law. Ida B. Wells
I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way. Ida B. Wells
I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon. Ida B. Wells
In slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive by the frequency and severity of the scourging, but, with freedom, a new system of intimidation came into vogue; the Negro was not only whipped and scourged; he was killed. Ida B. Wells
I honestly believe I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches. Ida B. Wells
The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience. Ida B. Wells
It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch. Ida B. Wells
Somebody must show that the Afro American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. Ida B. Wells
In fact, for all kinds of offenses and, for no offenses from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same. Ida B. Wells
It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch. Ida B. Wells
Those who commit the murders write the reports. Ida B. Wells
Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. Ida B. Wells
There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it. Ida B. Wells
The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant. Ida B. Wells
The South resented giving the Afro American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law. Ida B. Wells
In fact, for all kinds of offenses and, for no offenses from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same. Ida B. Wells
The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. Ida B. Wells
Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter. Ida B. Wells
The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased. Ida B. Wells
Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter. Ida B. Wells
The government which had made the Negro a citizen found itself unable to protect him. It gave him the right to vote, but denied him the protection which should have maintained that right. Ida B. Wells
The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder. Ida B. Wells
The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperiled. Ida B. Wells
The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd. Ida B. Wells
What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. Ida B. Wells
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. Ida B. Wells
Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. Ida B. Wells
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. Ida B. Wells
The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes. Ida B. Wells
The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. White men lynch the offending Afro American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women. Ida B. Wells
The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder. Ida B. Wells
The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided by the absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder should have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have ceased. Ida B. Wells
The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience. Ida B. Wells
I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way so I wrote in a plain, common sense way on the things that concerned our people. Ida B. Wells
The Afro American is not a bestial race. Ida B. Wells
No nation, savage or civilized, save only the United States of America, has confessed its inability to protect its women save by hanging, shooting, and burning alleged offenders Ida B. Wells
During the slave regime, the Southern white man owned the Negro body and soul. It was to his interest to dwarf the soul and preserve the body. Ida B. Wells
