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

The people that were mistreated were men, women, and children. It didn't end but the figures did decrease greatly. First of all, Wells had to "dismantle the stereotypes based on gender and race"(30). Wells investigated lynchings, wrote newspaper articles and editorials, spoke about mob violence, and joined organizations to prevent violence. The mob violence really attacked the African Americans to a point where they had no say in the doings. The punishment of "whites" compared to African Americans at this time was not very comparable. Bibliography Royster, Jacqueline Jones. Wells was very successful with the mob violence but by the time of her death, the lynching had not ended. Wells had to stop this because she did not want people thinking like this about African American women. According to "legal history," the anti-lynching activities showed "no success since Congress was unable to pass the Blair Bill, the Dyer Bill or any other legislation that would stem the tide of violence"(40). On her first tour, she campaigned and sent copies of her doings back to Memphis. Wells also took two British tours after gaining support from Britain. When these women joined the organizations, they were heard and people responded to them.