Ida B. Wells and "Lynch-Law"
As she grappled with the murders, Wells began to investigate the circumstances surrounding other lynchings. Local newspapers often reported that black men were murdered because they had raped white women. But as Wells interviewed witnesses and victims' families, she found evidence that cast doubt on this explanation.
In her pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch-Law in All Its Phases (1892) Wells presented some of the evidence she had collected to show that there was often no credible evidence of rape.
In her research, Wells found that fewer than a third of lynching victims had even been charged with rape. She also explained why the charge of rape was so pernicious: it made potential allies of African Americans believe they were not worth defending.
After Wells reported on her findings in the Free Speech, a white mob burned the newspaper's offices to the ground and threatened its staff's lives. Wells happened to be in New York at the time of the attack. She never returned to Memphis.
Photos of Southern Horrors are taken from New York Public Library digital collections (marked "free to use without restriction") - https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/868f8db7-fa74-d451-e040-e00a180630a7#/?uuid=63ce23b0-4abc-0134-cda4-00505686a51c
