IDA B WELLS, A SWORD AMONG LIONS PART 2

Link to Part 1 Within Ida B Wells' pamphlets on lynching, "Southern Horrors" and "The Red Record" she revealed that black men were only ever accused of rape in 1/3 of lynching cases. Instead, she concluded that most lynchings of black men and women, just like the lynching of friends connected to "The People's Grocery," were done for white financial gain.

Ida B Wells

HISTORY IDA B WELLS PART 1 http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/08/history-ida-b-wells-sword-among-lions.html

"Ida B" concluded that the rape accusations were a concoction by white newspapers and white town fathers and these fabrications were used to provide a cover for theft of property etc. in front of potential investors from the North and from Europe. Regarding the 1/3 of black men lynched that actually had been accused of rape, she found that all relationships between white women and black men, voluntary or not, were being called "rape" by white men.

Madam C J Walker

In 1896, Ida B Wells-Barnett founded the National Association of Colored Women and became increasingly devoted to the rights of women and children. Madam C J Walker a self-made millionaire and employer of self-sufficient women, would be a friend and supporter. Two years after founding the NACW, Wells-Barnett met with President William McKinley at the White House. As a result of their meeting, he made a speech denouncing lynching. However, no anti-lynching legislation was ever passed by Congress.

1909 Ida B Wells-Barnett became a founding member of the NAACP, which came together not long after the Spingfield, Illinois race riot.
* * * * * Ida B Wells-Barnett, though always on the front lines of the anti-lynching fight, also fought and succeeded in helping to get women voting rights--even though some black women weren't originally as interested in or comprehending of their own power. Chicago was one of the first places women got local voting rights. Eventually Wells-Barnett was able to sway more than one local election by increasing the overall numbers of black voters by simply adding black women voters. Black Women's Clubs were seen as powerful in the early 19th century. And Ida B Wells created a few of them.
Getting women the vote, nationally, would be a fight she would be engaged in most of her adult life.

During the suffrage parade of 1913 organized by Alice Paul’s [predominantly white] Congressional Union, black women were asked to march in a segregated unit. Ida B. Wells refused to do so and slipped into her state’s delegation after the start of the parade [instead.]"

In 1913, Ida B Wells created the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago which was devoted exclusively to getting voting rights for women.

Wells-Barnett also worked hard to overcome class divisions between black people. At times aligned with Monroe Trotter, that put her firmly against Booker T Washington who, reading between lines, appeared firmly in favor of class division and in favor of superiority so long that superiority was intra-racial rather than interracial.

During one effort to dissolve class divisions, Wells Barnett went so far as to support having a charity ball --for one of the many organizations she belonged to-- at a place called "The New Pekin" which put this "low gambling dive" and black owned business on the map. Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton would end up including "The New Pekin" on their tours. Ida B had been quite the respectability politician herself when she was younger. In the 30 or so years before the white south really got back on its feet, she truly believed that black people could behave their way into acceptability.

But like Malcom X, she had the ability to change her mind when presented with new information. The lynching of her friends and her sociological tracking of the increasing violence by whites against blacks changed her perspective on many things.


Unlike W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP (of which she was a founding member) Ida B did not turn away from those who were not "immaculate" She became very pragmatic as she aged, and more empathetic as well --likely based on errors she made herself when she was younger.

In 1917 when the NAACP found out that black soldiers of the 24th Infantry (a buffalo soldier unit) who had defended black people during a Houston race riot were "guilty of " drinking, partying, and promiscuous behavior, the NAACP decided the soldiers were not immaculate enough to be defended vigorously. (The NAACP always had an eye to white patrons and their own overly(?) white leadership)

As the soldiers had technically broken the law and were guilty of mutiny, "DuBois pronounced, "We ask "no mitigation of their punishment."

A black soldier came to the aid of a black woman being handled roughly by police was himself beaten and arrested. His leader, an officer Baltimore, would go to see about the beaten soldier and would be beaten and shot at himself. Upon hearing about this, Baltimore's men, tired of the race baiting and beatings by white police, decided to free their fellow soldiers. A riot followed.  Military tribunals found 110 of the soldiers guilty. A total of 19 soldiers were hanged and 63 received life sentences in federal prison. No white civilians were brought to trial. Some soldiers served as many as 20 years before their release.

Du Bois and others within the NAACP would be shocked to find out just what "no mitigation" would mean.

Thirteen of original 63 soldiers were hung before the final verdict was announced and without right of appeal to the President. An additional men would be put to death while others were given life sentences. http://www.tbhpp.org/riots.html

Ida would visit the remaining soldiers in jail, write articles about them, the martyrs, and their leader Vida Henry in hopes of getting those who remained alive a new trial.

Because of her protests on their behalf and her anti-lynching books/booklets and her husband Ferdinand's "Arm Yourself" speech, Ida B Wells-Barnett wound having government intelligence file written on her.

Ferdinand Barnett

As the NAACP would continue to refuse to help certain kinds of black folk, Ida B. relied on her husband, a lawyer, to represent some of the imperfect, nearly down and out She became a probation officer and wound up having at least one man live in the Wells-Barnett home while he got on his feet This led to the word "radical" being thrown around quite a bit whenever the Wells-Barnetts were in a room.  In short, Ida B. Wells was bolder and more unfettered in her protests against white racism, bolder than Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, both. Her scholarship and research in regards to anti-lynching, getting women the vote, and uniting black voters in general was most clearly by her adversaries.

"It is reported to this office that Ida B. Wells-Barnett is considered a far more dangerous agitator than Marcus Garvey. "

 

--Military Intelligence Division

(Sword Among Lions. Paula J Giddings)

1. 
   
   Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.

In 1925 Ida B Wells-Barnett via the Ida B Wells Club association with the Illinois Federation of Colored Women's Clubs helped secure an invitation for A Phillip Randolph to speak to the Women's Federation on behalf of Pullman Porters. When the new Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was being attacked and ignored by black political and civics groups, Ida B Wells-Barnett kept A Phillip Randolf and Milton Webster making the rounds through black women's groups until this union was fully recognized by the black community. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union would wind up breaking many glass ceilings for black employees within the Pullman company. "

Service not Servitude

"In 1930, [Ida B Wells-Barnett] lost an election to become Illinois State Senator, but became a pioneer for women candidates in the future."

Ida B Wells-Barnett died in 1931.

http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/wells-barnett_ida/