This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Truth-Telling: Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells

"Ida B. Wells Abroad" column of April 23, 1894

One of Wells's columns for the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, written on April 4 and published April 23, in which she quoted Willard's "dark-faced mobs" phrase from the Voice interview and argued that "because of such utterances the South is encouraged and justified in its work of disgracing the nation, and the world is confirmed in the belief that the Negro race is the most degraded on the face of the earth."

Provides context for Wells's thoughts about Willard's statements from the Voice interview--Wells criticized not only what she saw as Willard apologizing for lynching, but argued that racist statements like Willard's contributed to a national political and social climate that justified vigilante killings of black people

The Inter-Ocean columns are taken from a reprinted collection of them: Duster and Duster, eds., Ida From Abroad: The Timeless Writings of Ida B. Wells from England in 1894 (Chicago: Benjamin Williams Publishing, 2010). We will need a photo/reproduction, and do not have the rights for these.

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:
5. "Ida B. Wells Abroad" column of April 23, 1894 One of Wells's columns for the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, written on April 4 and published April 23, in which she quoted Willard's "dark-faced mobs" phrase from the Voice interview and argued that "because of such utterances the South is encouraged and justified in its work of disgracing the nation, and the world is confirmed in the belief that the Negro race is the most degraded on the face of the earth."
8. "President's Address," 1894 WCTU Convention
10. Letter from Willard re: 1895 resolution