Ida B. Wells-Barnett quotes

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an American journalist, educator, and passionate civil rights activist. A pioneering leader against lynching and racial injustice, she co-founded the NAACP and used her writing to expose prejudice. She dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights and justice for African Americans and women. Here are 28 of her quotes:

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-Barnett

The white man's victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

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-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-Barnett

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

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-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-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-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-Barnett

There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.

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-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-Barnett

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-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-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-Barnett

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-Barnett

The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

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-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-Barnett