Ida B. Wells Quotes

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.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home,

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

The appeal to the white man's pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.

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

The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

Lynching is color line murder.

The appetite grows for what it feeds on.

The white man's dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities.

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.

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.

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

One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

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

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

I honestly believe I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches.

The Afro-American is thus the backbone of the South.

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

Those who commit the murders write the reports.