The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was an investigative journalist, researcher, and activist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization that continues to advocate for civil rights and social justice today. Wells was also highly active in the women’s suffrage and women’s rights movements, but she was not afraid to speak her mind or to admonish activists whom she felt were too narrow-minded. Her writing style is noted for its frank and direct voice, lacking an inaccessible or academic style.

Wells was born into slavery in Arkansas in 1862. After the Civil War, her parents became involved in Reconstruction activism, and her father served as a trustee of Rust College, where Wells studied. Her parents and brother died of yellow fever when she was only 16, and Wells left college and worked to keep her remaining siblings from entering foster care. She taught in both Arkansas and Tennessee and began writing articles for newspapers, including The Detroit Plaindealer and The People’s Choice. Wells was also the one-third owner and editor of The Memphis Free Speech and Head Light.

In 1884, she filed a lawsuit against a Memphis train car company for discrimination. After paying for her first-class ticket, Wells was told to move from her seat. When she refused, the train conductor dragged her from the locomotive. She won the case at the local level, but it was overturned by a federal court. Wells recorded her experiences under the pen name “Iola.” In 1887, she was named assistant secretary of the National Afro-American Press Convention.

Wells felt that she had a duty to do what she could to improve the lives of Black people living in the South and challenge mob mentality. Her work as a journalist in Tennessee, uncovering stories of discrimination and violence, brought her national attention. However, not all the attention directed at Wells was positive. She was dismissed from her position as a teacher in 1891 for her political writing. Additionally, an article Wells wrote addressing a lynching in Memphis for The Living Way drew the ire of white mobs. In her account, three Black individuals were incarcerated for defending themselves against a group of white men pretending to be police officers. The three men were removed from the local jail and handed over to a mob. A single paragraph by Wells fueled a white mob to burn down her printing press and threaten her life. Wells, who was visiting Philadelphia, was told not to return to Memphis if she wanted to stay alive. To escape harassment, Wells moved to Chicago where she could continue her advocacy work with more security. She traveled across the globe as an acclaimed lecturer.

During the 1890s, Wells carefully recorded stories of lynchings taking place in the United States and published these accounts in The Red Record and Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases. Wells fought the assumption that Black people who were lynched were guilty of violent crimes and revealed how lynchings were used to instill fear in the Black population and maintain white control.

Alongside feminist and antiracist organizing, Ida B. Wells ran for Illinois Senate as an Independent in 1930, though she lost the election. She passed away in 1931 at the age of 69. Her writing and activist work have continued to influence generations of antiracist activists, especially after her autobiography was published posthumously in 1971. In 2020, she was rewarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in recognition of her contributions to journalism.