Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

His address to our people, delivered at Bethel A.M.E. Church, was eloquent with plain facts and deductions from those facts as applied to our race. Among other things, he said: “During my stay here in your city I have been visited by several groups of your people—all of whom have recited the story of the wrongs and injustices heaped upon the race; all of them appealing to me to denounce these outrages to the world. I have asked each delegation ‘What are you doing to help yourselves?’ Each group gave the same answer, namely, that they are so divided in church, lodges, etc., that they have not united their forces to fight the common enemy. At last I got mad, and said, ‘You people have not been lynched enough! You haven’t been lynched enough to drive you together! You say you are only ten millions in this country, with ten times that number against you—all of whom you say are solidly united by race prejudice against your progress. All of you by your own confession stand as individual units striving against a united band to fight or hold your own. Any ten-year-old child knows that a dozen persons fighting as one can make better headway against ten times its number than if each were fighting singlehanded and alone.’ “What you need in each community is a solid organization to fight race prejudice wherever shown. That organization should be governed by a council of your best men and women. All matters affecting your race welfare should be passed on by that council and loyally obe...