Name: Class:
Excerpt from "Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in
All Its Phases"
By Ida B. Wells
1892
Ida Bell Wells (1862-1931) was an African American journalist, suffragist, sociologist, and early
leader in the Civil Rights Movement. The following excerpt comes from her work entitled
Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases. In this pamphlet, Wells talks about lynching, or
murder by mob without a legal trial. The targets of such wanton violence and hatred were
almost always African Americans. Wells began investigating Southern lynching following the
lynching of three men — Thomas Henry Moss, Sr., William Stewart, and Calvin McDowell —
whom Wells considered friends. She published her investigations in her newspaper, Free Speech,
and received many threats, including the ransacking of her newspaper's office by a white mob.
Wells wrote Southern Horrors while in exile from the South. This text contains content that
students may find disturbing.
As you read, take notes on Wells’ appeal for the end of lynch law and whom she calls on
for action.
The Black and White of It
[1] The Cleveland Gazette of January 16, 1892,
publishes a case in point. Mrs. J.S.
Underwood, the wife of a minister of Elyria,
Ohio, accused an Afro-American1 of rape. She
told her husband that during his absence in
1888, stumping the State for the Prohibition
Party,2 the man came to the kitchen door,
forced his way in the house and insulted her.
She tried to drive him out with a heavy poker,
but he overpowered and chloroformed her,3
and when she revived her clothing was torn
and she was in a horrible condition. She did
not know the man but could identify him. She
pointed out William Offett, a married man, "Cover Southern horrors" by Unknown is in the
who was arrested and, being in Ohio, was public domain.
granted a trial.
The prisoner vehemently4 denied the charge of rape, but confessed he went to Mrs.
Underwood’s residence at her invitation and was criminally intimate5 with her at her request.
This availed6 him nothing against the sworn testimony of a minister’s wife, a lady of the highest
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respectability. He was found guilty, and entered the penitentiary, December 14, 1888, for
fifteen years. Some time afterwards the woman’s remorse led her to confess to her husband
that the man was innocent.
These are her words:
I met Offett at the Post Office. It was raining. He was polite to me, and as I had several bundles
in my arms he offered to carry them home for me, which he did. He had a strange fascination
for me, and I invited him to call on me. He called, bringing chestnuts and candy for the children.
By this means we got them to leave us alone in the room. Then I sat on his lap. He made a
proposal to me and I readily consented. Why I did so, I do not know, but that I did is true. He
visited me several times after that and each time I was indiscreet.7 I did not care after the first
time. In fact I could not have resisted, and had no desire to resist.
[5] When asked by her husband why she told him she had been outraged,8 she said: “I had several
reasons for telling you. One was the neighbors saw the fellows here, another was, I was afraid I
had contracted a loathsome disease,9 and still another was that I feared I might give birth to a
Negro baby. I hoped to save my reputation by telling you a deliberate lie.” Her husband
horrified by the confession had Offett, who had already served four years, released and
secured a divorce.
There are thousands of such cases throughout the South, with the difference that the Southern
white men in insatiate10 fury wreak their vengeance without intervention11 of law upon the
Afro-Americans who consort with their women. [...]
1. alternative spelling of “African American”
2. To “stump” is to travel around an area (such as a district, state, or nation) making political
speeches. In this case, Mr. Underwood traveled around Ohio advocating for Prohibition, the
legal banning of the manufacture and sale of alcohol.
3. Chloroform is a liquid and general anaesthetic that can be used to render a person
unconscious.
4. Vehemently (adverb) strongly or passionately
5. During this time, it was against the law for a Black man and a white woman to engage in a
romantic and/or sexual relationship.
6. Avail (verb) to help or benefit
7. Indiscreet (adjective) having or showing too great a readiness to reveal things that remain
secret or private
8. “Outrage” in this context is an outdated term for rape.
9. Likely this is a reference to a sexually transmitted disease.
10. Insatiate (adjective) never satisfied
11. “Intervention” in this context refers to interference or something that would stop something
else.
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Hundreds of such cases might be cited, but enough have been given to prove the assertion that
there are white women in the South who love the Afro-American’s company even as there are
white men notorious for their preference for Afro-American women.
There is hardly a town in the South which has not an instance of the kind which is well known,
and hence the assertion is reiterated12 that “nobody in the South believes the old thread bare
lie that negro men rape white women.” Hence there is a growing demand among Afro-
Americans that the guilt or innocence of parties accused of rape be fully established. They know
the men of the section of the country who refuse this are not so desirous of punishing rapists
as they pretend. The utterances of the leading white men show that with them it is not the
crime but the class. Bishop Fitzgerald has become apologist for lynchers of the rapists
of white women only. Governor Tillman, of South Carolina, in the month of June, standing under
the tree in Barnwell, S.C., on which eight Afro-Americans were hung last year, declared that he
would lead a mob to lynch a negro who raped a white woman. So say the pulpits, officials and
newspapers of the South. But when the victim is a colored woman it is different.
Last winter in Baltimore, Md., three white ruffians assaulted a Miss Camphor, a young Afro-
American girl, while out walking with a young man of her own race. They held her escort13 and
outraged the girl. It was a deed dastardly14 enough to arouse Southern blood, which gives its
horror of rape as excuse for lawlessness, but she was an Afro-American. The case went to the
courts, an Afro-American lawyer defended the men and they were acquitted.
[10] In Nashville, Tenn., there is a white man, Pat Hanifan, who outraged a little Afro-American girl,
and, from the physical injuries received, she has been ruined for life. He was jailed for six
months, discharged, and is now a detective in that city. In the same city, last May, a white man
outraged an Afro-American girl in a drug store. He was arrested, and released on bail at the
trial. It was rumored that five hundred Afro-Americans had organized to lynch him. Two
hundred and fifty white citizens armed themselves with Winchesters15 and guarded him. A
cannon was placed in front of his home, and the Buchanan Rifles (State Militia) ordered to the
scene for his protection. The Afro-American mob did not materialize. Only two weeks before
Eph. Grizzard, who had only been charged with rape upon a white woman, had been taken from
the jail, with Governor Buchanan and the police and militia standing by, dragged through the
streets in broad daylight, knives plunged into him at every step, and with every fiendish cruelty
a frenzied mob could devise, he was at last swung out on the bridge with hands cut to pieces as
he tried to climb up the stanchions.16 A naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the
nineteenth-century civilization of the Athens of the South!17 No cannon or military was called
12. Reiterate (verb) to say something again for emphasis or clarity
13. “Escort” means someone who accompanies another, usually for companionship or
protection.
14. Dastardly (adjective) wicked or cruel
15. A Winchester is a type of rifle gun.
16. A “stanchion” is an upright bar, post, or frame forming a support or barrier.
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out in his defense. He dared to visit a white woman.
[...]
The New Cry
The appeal of Southern whites to Northern sympathy and sanction, the adroit,18 insidious19
plea made by Bishop Fitzgerald for suspension of judgment because those “who condemn
lynching express no sympathy for the white woman in the case,” falls to the ground in the light
of the foregoing.
From this exposition of the race issue in lynch law, the whole matter is explained by the well-
known opposition growing out of slavery to the progress of the race. This is crystalized in the
oft-repeated slogan: “This is a white man’s country and the white man must rule.” The South
resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.20 The
raids of the Ku-Klux and White Liners21 to subvert reconstruction government,22 the Hamburg
and Ellerton, S.C., the Copiah County, Miss., and the Layfayette Parish, La., massacres were
excused as the natural resentment of intelligence against government by ignorance.
[...]
One by one the Southern States have legally disfranchised23 the Afro-American, and since the
repeal of the Civil Rights Bill nearly every Southern State has passed separate car laws24 with a
penalty against their infringement. The race regardless of advancement is penned into filthy,
stifling partitions cut off from smoking cars. All this while, although the political cause has been
removed, the butcheries of black men at Barnwell, S.C., Carrolton, Miss., Waycross, Ga., and
Memphis, Tenn., have gone on; also the flaying alive of a man in Kentucky, the burning of one in
Arkansas, the hanging of a fifteen-year-old girl in Louisiana, a woman in Jackson, Tenn., and one
17. “Athens of the South” is a nickname for Nashville, TN.
18. Adroit (adjective) clever or skillful (in using the hands or mind)
19. Insidious (adjective) proceeding in a subtle way, but with harmful effects
20. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public
accommodations and public transportation, but many states found ways around the law.
21. The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist and right-wing extremist group in the United States.
“White Liners” was a name given to those who showed white supremacist attitudes during
the Reconstruction Era in the South, and these groups often formed armed militias.
22. refers to the government of the Reconstruction Era, the period following the American Civil
War that focused on restructuring the South
23. “Disfranchise” is an old spelling of “disenfranchise,” which means to deprive someone of
their rights (particularly the right to vote).
24. laws that divided white and Black passengers on trains
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in Hollendale, Miss., until the dark and bloody record of the South shows 728 Afro-Americans
lynched during the past eight years. Not fifty of these were for political causes; the rest were for
all manner of accusations from that of rape of white women, to the case of the boy Will Lewis
who was hanged at Tullahoma, Tenn., last year for being drunk and “sassy” to white folks.
[...]
This cry has had its effect. It has closed the heart, stifled the conscience, warped the judgment
and hushed the voice of press and pulpit on the subject of lynch law throughout this “land of
liberty.” Men who stand high in the esteem of the public for Christian character, for moral and
physical courage, for devotion to the principles of equal and exact justice to all, and for great
sagacity,25 stand as cowards who fear to open their mouths before this great outrage. They do
not see that by their tacit encouragement, their silent acquiescence,26 the black shadow of
lawlessness in the form of lynch law is spreading its wings over the whole country.
[...]
[15] The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American. It has left the
out-of-the-way places where ignorance prevails, has thrown off the mask and with this new cry
stalks in broad daylight in large cities, the centers of civilization, and is encouraged by the
“leading citizens” and the press.
[...]
The South’s Position
Henry W. Grady in his well-remembered speeches in New England and New York pictured the
Afro-American as incapable of self-government. Through him and other leading men the cry of
the South to the country has been “Hands off! Leave us to solve our problem.” To the Afro-
American the South says, “the white man must and will rule.” There is little difference between
the Antebellum27 South and the New South.
Her white citizens are wedded to any method however revolting, any measure however
extreme, for the subjugation28 of the young manhood of the race. They have cheated him out
of his ballot, deprived him of civil rights or redress therefor in the civil courts, robbed him of the
fruits of his labor, and are still murdering, burning and lynching him.
25. Sagacity (noun) wisdom
26. Acquiescence (noun) acceptance of something without protest
27. “Antebellum” is a term used to describe a pre-war period, in this case before the American
Civil War. In Latin it literally translates to “before the war.”
28. the state of being under control or being secondary, typically through means of force
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The result is a growing disregard of human life. Lynch law has spread 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,29 especially where an Afro-American is concerned. The South
is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of
government, law and order, are imperiled.
[...]
Self-Help
In the creation of this healthier public sentiment, the Afro-American can do for himself what no
one else can do for him. The world looks on with wonder that we have conceded so much and
remain law-abiding under such great outrage and provocation.
[20] To Northern capital30 and Afro-American labor the South owes its rehabilitation. If labor is
withdrawn capital will not remain. The Afro-American is thus the backbone of the South. A
thorough knowledge and judicious31 exercise of this power in lynching localities could many
times effect a bloodless revolution. The white man’s dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to
stop outrages in many localities.
[...]
The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever
made to his conscience. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is to be gained by a further sacrifice of
manhood and self-respect. By the right exercise of his power as the industrial factor of the
South, the Afro-American can demand and secure his rights, the punishment of lynchers, and a
fair trial for accused rapists.
[...]
Nothing is more definitely settled than he must act for himself. I have shown how he may
employ the boycott, emigration and the press, and I feel that by a combination of all these
agencies can be effectually stamped out lynch law, that last relic of barbarism and slavery. “The
gods help those who help themselves.”32
29. Impunity (noun) being exempt from punishment or free from consequences
30. “Capital” in this sense refers to wealth.
31. Judicious (adjective) having, showing, or done with good judgement or sense
32. A popular motto from ancient Greece, the English translation was made popular by
Algernon Sidney.
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Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells (1892) is in the public domain.
Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
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Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete
sentences.
1. How does the story of William Offet contribute to the structure of the passage? PICK
TWO. (Paragraphs 1-5)
A. It contrasts examples provided later in the text of Black men who were
lynched without trial in the South.
B. It demonstrates how easily Black men were wrongfully convicted based
upon the false claims of a white person.
C. It provides evidence of the fairness of the legal system in the North by
showing how it eventually uncovered the truth.
D. It shows that white women who falsely accused Black men faced serious
legal consequences when discovered.
E. It explains the law that prohibited Americans from engaging in interracial
romantic relationships during this time period.
F. It highlights how seriously accusations of rape were treated during this
time, regardless of where they were reported in the United States.
2. How does the mention of African Americans being "disfranchised" contribute to
Wells' larger argument regarding lynching? (Paragraph 13)
A. Disfranchisement segregates people of different races; Wells argues for it
in the hope that white Americans will end lynch law if they are separated
from African Americans.
B. Disfranchisement takes away African Americans' right to vote, as protected
by the Fifteenth Amendment, which Wells' is fighting to restore in this
essay.
C. Disfranchisement diminishes African Americans' rights and power,
enabling white Americans to use violence against them in the form of
lynch law without consequences.
D. Disfranchisement comes from the Reconstruction Era, which sought to
return the South to its height during the antebellum years, contributing to
Wells' argument that the Civil War is not over.
3. PART A: What does the word "tacit" most likely mean as used in paragraph 14?
A. understood without words
B. awkward or graceless
C. obviously enthusiastic
D. skilled or expert
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4. PART B: Which of the following phrases from paragraph 14 best supports the answer
to Part A?
A. "warped the judgment"
B. "stand high in the esteem of the public"
C. "devotion to the principles of equal and exact justice to all"
D. "their silent acquiescence"
5. What is the "new cry" mentioned in paragraphs 11-15? Cite evidence in your answer
as you explain the "cry" and the figurative language used to describe it.
6. How does the following quote contribute to the author's central ideas in the final
section? "The gods help those who help themselves." (Paragraph 22)
7. Which of the following best describes the author's purpose in writing this text?
A. to provide an objective summary of the number of lynchings in America
B. to talk about her own personal experiences with the anti-lynching
movement
C. to inform the public about wrongful imprisonment and seek release for
African Americans who were wrongly imprisoned
D. to speak out about the violence of lynch law and declare a call-to-action,
particularly aimed at African Americans, to end lynchings
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Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be
prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. In your opinion, is taking the law into one's own hands ever justified? Why or why
not? Explain your position and provide examples to support your answer.
2. In the context of this passage, what are the effects of prejudice? Why, according to
the passage and your own knowledge of history, were African Americans specifically
targeted? What factors contributed to this prejudice, discrimination, and violence?
Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history
in your answer.
3. In the context of this passage, what is fair? Consider your current justice system. In
what ways, if at all, are law and punishment weighed against certain people or
groups? Can these inequalities be corrected? If so, how? Cite evidence from this text,
your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
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4. In the context of this passage, how has America changed over time? Is lynching or
taking the law into one's hands still an issue where you live? In the nation? Cite
evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in
your answer.
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