“First, We would vote, with the right to vote goes everything: Freedom, manhood, the honor of your wives, the chastity of your daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen to those who deny this.”(P. 46) These words came from the powerful mind of W.E.B. DuBois, a graduate of Fisk University, and eventually Harvard University with a Ph.D. DuBois among many other African American writers spent their entire lives devoted to creating a better life for Afro-Americans living in the United States. Individuals like DuBois including Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, Henry McNeal Turner, and Frances E.W. Harper gave speeches encouraging alternate solutions to the issue of racism that existed in America. Some suggested,
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Wells tackles a very different issue in her speech United States Atrocities, lynching. Wells presents the idea that all African Americans should all carry a Winchester rifle in their homes. She encourages this for the reason that “Lynch Law has spread free its insidious influence till men in New York State, Pennsylvania and on the free Western plains feel they can take the law in their own hands with impunity especially where an Afro-American is concerned. The South is brutalised to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law, and order are imperilled.” (P. 36) White men were running costless, lynching African American people for nothing. Ida B. Wells felt that the only way to put a stop to the death of her people was for fear to be struck into the hearts of white men that if they tried to lynch an African American, their lives could also be on the line. This scenario could decrease the deaths of African Americans via lynching by many. With the possibility of their own life being taken from them, white men might think twice about lynching an Afro-American man. But in the event that a white man decides to carry out his plan to lynch an African American, and becomes the victim of a shooting because he provided a threat, this is a just cause for punishment towards anybody. Fighting violence with violence can just lead to more violence and things can get out of hand very quickly in this case. “The strong arm of the law must be brought to bear upon lynchers in severe punishment,...” (P. 36) Whatever punishment is being suggested, anything less than death and torture would be appropriate. As the saying goes, two wrongs do not make a right, and killing someone because they are a killer themselves, is not
Wells tackles a very different issue in her speech United States Atrocities, lynching. Wells presents the idea that all African Americans should all carry a Winchester rifle in their homes. She encourages this for the reason that “Lynch Law has spread free its insidious influence till men in New York State, Pennsylvania and on the free Western plains feel they can take the law in their own hands with impunity especially where an Afro-American is concerned. The South is brutalised to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law, and order are imperilled.” (P. 36) White men were running costless, lynching African American people for nothing. Ida B. Wells felt that the only way to put a stop to the death of her people was for fear to be struck into the hearts of white men that if they tried to lynch an African American, their lives could also be on the line. This scenario could decrease the deaths of African Americans via lynching by many. With the possibility of their own life being taken from them, white men might think twice about lynching an Afro-American man. But in the event that a white man decides to carry out his plan to lynch an African American, and becomes the victim of a shooting because he provided a threat, this is a just cause for punishment towards anybody. Fighting violence with violence can just lead to more violence and things can get out of hand very quickly in this case. “The strong arm of the law must be brought to bear upon lynchers in severe punishment,...” (P. 36) Whatever punishment is being suggested, anything less than death and torture would be appropriate. As the saying goes, two wrongs do not make a right, and killing someone because they are a killer themselves, is not