Ida Wells's Life Milestones - Essay Example

History and Political Science 15 October History Ida B. Wells was born on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi (Browne and Cottrell 13). Her parents James Wells and Elizabeth were slaves and this naturally made Ida a slave as well. However, their lives as slaves were shortened “when Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant pushed into Marshall County that fall” (Browne and Cottrell 13). This was after “President Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction” (Wells 5), which was on 8 December 1863. This changed Ida’s destiny, since she was able to attend university unlike other children born to slaves. Ida had several memories of slavery and during her adulthood, she made a vow to fight for racial justice. Among the racial and gender stereotypes that Ida was challenging discrimination of blacks by whites, the killings of blacks by whites, rapes of Negro girls and women by white men, stereotyping upon black men as rapists, and economic destruction of blacks by whites. During the periods of post-reconstruction and post-emancipation, racial categories in America were on the rise and this promoted more lynching crimes. Wells first encounter with racial discrimination happened when she boarded a train, but was forced out of the train for sitting in the section meant for whites. Despite suing the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad company, she lost her case against the train company, the main reason being the fact that she was black. According to Waldrep, “in 1887, the crusading journalist Ida B. Wells lost faith in the law when the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against her suit against a train company that had forced her from the white section of its train” (52). All along, Wells had believed that the law would be impartial in its ruling, but like other black leaders she generated doubts on whether the law and constitutionalism could sufficiently fight white oppression. During the 19th century, lynching of blacks by whites was a common occurrence. Wells had however not faced any lynching incident although she knew that the crime existed. She began her campaign against lynching five years after the train incident, when a quarrel between blacks and whites broke out at a neighborhood in Memphis. The reason for the quarrel was the opening up of a grocery store meant to provide the black population with cheap groceries by three black men namely; Henry Stewart, Calvin McDowell, and Thomas Moss, who were friends to Wells. The grocery store belonging to the three black men was located across a grocery store owned by whites and the fact that the black men had decided to sell their groceries at a price they perceived fair to the black community angered the whites. Both communities knowing of the intentions of each other organized mobs, so when the white community went to the store to attack the owners, the three owners and the entire black mob was ready. The three white men that invaded the store were shot by the owners and this led to the arrest of the three black men. According to Wells, “the three business partners were jailed and charged with wounding white men , despite their doing so in what they had thought was defense of their property” (3). The arrest and subsequent actions towards the three black men were supposed to follow the law, but this did not happen. White newspapers emphasized the issue of the blacks being wrong, and at no instance did they mention the intentions of the white mob for invading the grocery store owned by blacks. Asante asserts that the newspapers elevated “white anger and gave rise to the formation of another white mob, this time outside the jail where the three blacks were being held and resulting in their murder” (164). This and many other similar incidents are evidence of lynching against blacks and economic destruction of blacks by whites in the 19th century, aimed at keeping the black race down by eliminating any blacks who seemed to have the potential of being economically successful. This is supported by Wells who states that “lynching was not simply a spontaneous punishment for crimes but an act of terror perpetrated against a race of people in order to maintain power and control” (3). Rapes of Negro girls and women by white men were on the rise in the late nineteenth century, and the sad thing about the issue is that not much attention was paid to it even when matters were taken to court. An example of such an incident is a rape ordeal that took place in 1891 in Baltimore (Bevacqua 22). A young black girl known as Miss Camphor was out on a walk with a fellow young black man, when three white hooligans approached them, held Miss Camphor’s escort, and raped her. Despite the fact that this case was taken to court, the three white men were liberated of blame and released. The reason behind this was because black women and girls were accused of seducing the whites, which in most instances, was not the case. There was also the issue of black men being stereotyped as rapists in the late nineteenth century and this led to deaths of many African American men, due to lynching. The whites referred to the African American men ads the animalistic black men and rapists that raped their white women, and held this as the reason for their lynching acts towards them. In her observation regarding the issue of rape, Wells noted that in some of the cases, the rapes of white women by black men had taken place, but the rapes of black women by white men were far much more than white women had to bear from black men. Wells once stated that the laws “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” (Freedman n.p.). From the incidences discussed, it is clear that Ida B. Wells was challenging the master narratives of lynching, which was a widely accepted practice in America in the late nineteenth century, racial discrimination, and attempts to keeping the black race down. Frances Willard was born in 1839 in Churchville (Bordin 14). Unlike Ida Wells, she was white. However, the two women had a lot in common; they were passionate, uncompromising and outspoken women activists. During the time that Ida led the anti-lynching movement, Willard was the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a very powerful and influential union during the late nineteenth century. As a way to succeed in her mission, Ida decide to seek Willard’s support, but Willard refused to support her and this led to a conflict between the two women. While Ida accused Willard of ignoring a racial problem that was rampant in the South, Willard accused her of having a clouded perception due to the zeal for her race. From this discussion, it is clear that America’s sense of destiny in the late nineteenth century was a retreat to its previous state, when slavery was a norm and African Americans had no rights, since they were regarded as not American citizens. However, Wells and other activists who did not give up in the fight for justice for the blacks in America changed this. Wells went to the lengths of involving the Europeans in sorting out the issue. Smith points out that “the dramatic increase in lynching in the late nineteenth century brought white Americans uniquely under the scrutiny of both an African American and the European gaze” (141). The fruits of her relentlessness together with other activists can be seen today through the equal treatment of white Americans and African Americans. Works Cited Asante, Molefi Kete. The African American People: A Global History. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print. Bevacqua, Maria. Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault. Lillington: Edwards Brothers, Inc., 2000. Print. Bordin, Ruth. Frances Willard: A Biography. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Print. Browne, Blaine T. and Robert C. Cottrell. Lives and Times - Individuals and Issues in American History since 1865. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010. Print. Freedman, Estelle B. Redefining Rape. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. Print. Smith, Shawn Michelle. Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Print. Waldrep, Christopher. Racial Violence on Trial: A Handbook with Cases, Laws, and Documents. California: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2001. Print. Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892 – 1900. Ed. Jacqueline Jones Royster. London: St Martin’s Press, 1997. Print. Read More