Excerpts of “lynch law in america” by ida b. wells
our country's national crime is lynching. it is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. it represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an "unwritten law" that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal.
it is considered a sufficient excuse and reasonable justification to put a prisoner to death under this "unwritten law" for the frequently repeated charge that these lynching horrors are necessary to prevent crimes against women. the sentiment of the country has been appealed to, in describing the isolated condition of white families in thickly populated negro districts; and the charge is made that these homes are in as great danger as if they were surrounded by wild beasts.
not only are two hundred men and women put to death annually, on the average, in this country by mobs, but these lives are taken with the greatest publicity. in many instances the leading citizens aid and abet by their presence when they do not participate, and the leading journals inflame the public mind to the lynching point with scare-head articles and offers of rewards. whenever a burning is advertised to take place, the railroads run excursions, photographs are taken, and the same jubilee is indulged in that characterized the public hangings of one hundred years ago. there is, however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. the nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd. if the leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the body and the victim is then roasted to death. this has been done in texarkana and paris, tex., in bardswell, ky., and in newman, ga. in paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. the mayor gave the school children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that the people might see a human being burned to death. in texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their victim. at newman, ga., of the present year, the mob tried every conceivable torture to compel the victim to cry out and confess, before they set fire to the [cigarettes] that burned him. but their trouble was all in vain--he never uttered a cry, and they could not make him confess. .
quite a number of the one-third alleged cases of assault that have been personally investigated by the writer have shown that there was no foundation in fact for the charges; yet the claim is not made that there were no real culprits among them.
7. if you were an investigative journalist today, what injustice would you try to bring to the public’s attention?