Lynching By Ida B. Wells Summary

This document was written by Ida B. Wells in the year 1900. This document was intended to provide people, specifically historians, the perspective of African Americans who experienced lynching because of racism and accusations. The purpose of this document is to explain how African Americans were treated and lynched in the late 19th and early 20th century.
During the time that this document was created, rather than suffering from unforeseen actions, many African Americans were intentionally subjected to racial violence without any given rights. Many of which were murdered in an effort to suppress an increase in their people’s population. There were conflicting ideas regarding contracts with many African American employers that either resulted in their deaths through their boss or by a large crowd of people. Most of the killings were done in order to …show more content…
African Americans had no voice and were not protected by the law. Because of this “unwritten law”, there wouldn’t be anything that could stop white people from charging African Americans with assault or insult. Under this law, the murder of black people is considered justifiable if a white person were to feel threatened by their presence. Although this was compared to the Spanish inquisition or the middle ages, because of how inhumane this was, it was still widely accepted and considered okay. Most of the killings happened in public and many citizens were encouraged to participate. This type of lynching was characterized by a mob burning the body as well as distributing the slashed off toes, fingers, ears, as well as other types of flesh which occurred in many places during the time. The writer’s research has also concluded that more than a third of the alleged assault cases were indeed false. Crimes against black people hold little to no importance when compared to crimes against white people. Many of the crimes that are being committed against African Americans stem that stem from white people