Ida B. Wells: A Voice Against Lynching

This study focuses on the campaign that the African American journalist Ida B. Wells fought against lynching in the United States between the 19th and the 20th centuries. It provides an analysis of the two most famous pamphlets she wrote, Southern Horrors (1892) and The Red Record (1895), and stresses their impact on American public opinion. This research also outlines the anti-lynching campaign that Wells carried into the first third of the 20th century by writing additional pamphlets, dedicating herself to numerous initiatives, joining the most important African American organizations, and also forming her own association. With her passion, devotion, and accuracy, Wells represented the voice of the people of color by reporting the increasing number of lynchings against African Americans. Wells’ “crusade for justice” did not succeed in achieving its main goal and often kept her in a marginal position inside the most significant organizations of the time, but her ideas later became the basis of a renewed battle that in the end eradicated lynching