Southern Horrors and Other Writings

A detailed Summary of Southern Horrors and Other Writings

What is mob violence? Well, nowadays, mob violence differs in comparison to mob violence in the nineteenth century. In the years following the Civil War, there was a lot of mistreatment of African Americans. Ida B. Wells, a young African American journalist, investigated and accounted for the violence acted upon the African Americans during the Post-Reconstruction period. Wells wrote about her investigations because she belied it was the "first step to tell the world the facts" and to make lynching "a crime against American values"(27). In the book Southern Horrors and Other Writings, Royster discussed the mob violence of the lower South and the steps that Wells took to end this violence.

During the nineteenth century, a lot of different acts of mob violence were done to the African Americans in the South. Wells focused on lynching of African Americans by the mob. The reasons given for lynching were "allegations of murder, burglary, arson, poisoning water and livestock, insulting whites, being insolent, and other perceived 'offenses,' and sometimes they were lynched on no charges at all"(29). These reasons were not very legitimate. The lynchings could have been handled in a different way as in a court and jury, not b

Ida B. Wells did all she could to help the African Americans in dealing with the mob violence during the nineteenth century. She took several steps to achieve her crusades to end mob violence. Wells investigated lynchings, wrote newspaper articles and editorials, spoke about mob violence, and joined organizations to prevent violence. First of all, Wells had to "dismantle the stereotypes based on gender and race"(30). The stereotypes said that the "white women were pure and innocent" but the "African American women were wanton, licentious, promiscuous"(30). Wells had to stop this because she did not want people thinking like this about African American women. Wells wrote a pamphlet Southern Horrors that described violence. Later, Wells made a speech in Washington, D.C. hoping she would gain support from Britain, which she did. Wells joined anti-lynching committees like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), which provided protection against mob violence. Others were the Anti-Lynching Crusaders and the Association of Southern Women for the Protection of Lynching(ASWPL). These groups were mainly made up of women seeking public awareness.

Ida B. Wells hoped that all her doings would help improve the lives of African American women. Wells hoped to accomplish this by breaking up the stereotypes between gender and race. African American women were seen very opposite compared to the white women and Wells planned to stop that. She wanted the A

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Approximate Word count = 1004
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History