Lynching was the main weapon of terror to take back the black vote and property and “to keep the race terrorized and to keep the nigger down.”[22] The Memphis lynching caused Wells to question the rape claim as the main reason for lynching. In her research, Wells discovered that rape was given as the reason in only about one-third of lynchings. In many of these cases, the claims referred to consensual sexual acts, while in others, the claims were often false.
