Ida B. Wells Abroad
In a column she wrote for the Chicago newspaper the Inter-Ocean during her time in England, Wells repeatedly mentioned Willard along with other well-regarded white leaders. She charged them with spreading the falsehood that most lynchings occurred after a black man had raped a white women. In her column of March 24, she wrote:
To prove her case about Willard, Wells had found a copy of the Voice interview from 1890. She arranged to have it reprinted in an anti-racist British newspaper called Fraternity.I find wherever I go that we are deprived the expression of condemnation such hangings and burnings deserve, because the world believes negro men are despoilers of the virtue of white women. ... Unfortunately for the negro race and for themselves, Miss Frances E. Willard and Bishops Fitzgerald and Haygood have published utterances in condemnation of this slander.
In her column of May 6, 1894, Wells's tone about Willard changed. She wrote that she had met Willard and Somerset at a reception in London, the night before Wells was scheduled to give a speech before the BWTA. According to Wells:
I have seen Miss Willard and talked with her, and she sees the subject of lynching as she never saw it before, because she, like others, made the mistake of judging the negro by what his accusers say of him and without hearing his side of the story.
However, the issue of Fraternity with Willard's interview and accompanying critique from Wells had already been sent to the printers.
