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The Red Record QUOTES

The Red Record QUOTES

1 " If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

2 " Virtue knows no color line, and the chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can command no honest respect. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

3 " Burning and torture here lasts but a little while, but if I die with a lie on my soul, I shall be tortured forever. I am innocent. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

4 " Not only is it true that many of the alleged cases of rape against the Negro, are like the foregoing, but the same crime committed by white men against Negro women and girls, is never punished by mob or the law. A leading journal in South Carolina openly said some months ago that “it is not the same thing for a white man to assault a colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged!” Yet colored women have always had far more reason to complain of white men in this respect than ever white women have had of Negroes. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

5 " In nearly all communities wife beating is punishable with a fine, and in no community is it made a felony. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

6 " LYNCHED BECAUSE THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM The entire system of the judiciary of this country is in the hands of white people. To this add the fact of the inherent prejudice against colored people, and it will be clearly seen that a white jury is certain to find a Negro prisoner guilty if there is the least evidence to warrant such a finding. Meredith Lewis was arrested in Roseland, La., in July of last year. A white jury found him not guilty of the crime of murder wherewith he stood charged. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

7 " There can be no possible belief that these people were inspired by any consuming zeal to vindicate God’s law against miscegenationists of the most practical sort. The woman was a willing partner in the victim’s guilt, and being of the “superior” race must naturally have been more guilty. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

8 " Lee Walker, colored man, accused of raping white women, in jail here, will be taken out and burned by whites tonight. Can you send Miss Ida Wells to write it up? "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

9 " The shorter Negro stood gazing at the horrible death of his brother without flinching. Five minutes later he was also hanged. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

10 " for all victims of the terrible injustice which puts men and women to death without form of law. During the year 1894, there were 132 persons executed in the United States by due form of law, while in the same year, 197 persons were put to death by mobs who gave the victims no opportunity to make a lawful defense. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

11 " The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

12 " LYNCHING STATES Mississippi, 15; Arkansas, 8; Virginia, 5; Tennessee, 15; Alabama, 12; Kentucky, 12; Texas, 9; Georgia, 19; South Carolina, 5; Florida, 7; Louisiana, 15; Missouri, 4; Ohio, 2; Maryland, 1; West Virginia, 2; Indiana, 1; Kansas, 1; Pennsylvania, 1. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

13 " (Lynched for Wife Beating) In nearly all communities wife beating is punishable with a fine, and in no community is it made a felony. Dave Jackson, of Abita, La., was a colored man who had beaten his wife. He had not killed her, nor seriously wounded her, but as Louisiana lynchers had not filled out their quota of crimes, his case was deemed of sufficient importance to apply the method of that barbarous people. He was in the custody of the officials, but the mob went to the jail and took him out in front of the prison and hanged him by the neck until he was dead. This was in Nov. 1893. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

14 " LYNCHED FOR NO OFFENSE Perhaps the most characteristic feature of this record of lynch law for the year 1893, is the remarkable fact that five human beings were lynched and that the matter was considered of so little importance that the powerful press bureaus of the country did not consider the matter of enough importance to ascertain the causes for which they were hanged. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

15 " ASKING WHITE WOMAN TO MARRY HIM May 23, William Brooks, Galesline, Ark. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

16 " Then these lynchers went quietly away and the bodies of the woman and three men were taken out and buried with as little ceremony as men would bury hogs. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record

17 " Negro, and also that which was used to lead him from the jail, were eagerly sought by relic hunters. They almost fought for a chance to cut off a piece of rope, and in an incredibly short time both ropes had disappeared and were scattered in the pockets of the crowd in sections of from an inch to six inches long. Others of the relic hunters remained until the ashes cooled to obtain such ghastly relics as the teeth, nails, and bits of charred skin of the immolated victim of his own lust. "

― Ida B. Wells-Barnett , The Red Record