Crusade for Justice Quotes

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and it does seem to me that notwithstanding all these social agencies and activities there is not that vigilance which should be exercised in the preservation of our rights.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“South Carolina had thirteen lynchings last year, ten were charged with assault on white women, one with horse stealing and two with being impudent to white women.

The first of the ten charged with rape, named John Peterson, was declared by the white woman in the case to be the wrong man, but the mob said a crime had been committed and somebody had to hang for it. So John Peterson, being the available ‘somebody,’ was hanged. At Columbia, South Carolina, July 30th, a similar charge was made, and three Negroes were hanged one after another because they said they wanted to be sure they got the right one.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“Haiti as an independent republic accepted the invitation extended to her along with other nations, and erected a building on the World's Fair grounds. She placed Frederick Douglass in charge of this building to represent the Haitian government. Mr. Douglass had been sent as minister to Haiti from this country a few years before this, and had so won the confidence of this little black republic that it in turn gave him the honor of being in charge of their exhibit. Had it not been for this, Negroes of the United States would have had no part nor lot in any official way in the World's Fair. For the United States government had refused her Negro citizens participation therein.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“The next morning the newspapers carried the news that while our meeting was being held there had been staged in Paris, Texas, one of the most awful lynchings and burnings this country has ever witnessed. A Negro had been charged with ravishing and murdering a five-year-old girl. He had been arrested and imprisoned while preparations were made to burn him alive. The local papers issued bulletins detailing the preparations, the schoolchildren had been given a holiday to see a man burned alive, and the railroads ran excursions and brought people of the surrounding country to witness the event, which was in broad daylight with the authorities aiding and abetting this horror. The dispatches told in detail how he had been tortured with red-hot irons searing his flesh for hours before finally the flames were lit which put an end to his agony. They also told how the mob fought over the hot ashes for bones, buttons, and teeth for souvenirs.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“I also found that what the white man of the South practiced for himself, he assumed to be unthinkable in white women. They could and did fall in love with the pretty mulatto and quadroon girls as well as black ones, but they professed an inability to imagine white women doing the same thing with Negro and mulatto men. Whenever they did so and were found out, the cry of rape was raised, and the lowest element of the white South was turned loose to wreak its fiendish cruelty on those too weak to help themselves.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“The most recent instance of that happened only this past year.1 There was an organization established known as the American Citizenship Federation.2 This was an organization of beautiful ideals as to the fostering of patriotism in our country. All races were to be included, and an appeal was prepared and presented asking them to join in a two-million-dollar drive. This money was to be used in the erection of a peace temple modeled on Faneuil Hall of Boston and Independence Hall of Philadelphia. The plan was to incorporate all the beautiful ideals of liberty and patriotism which had been started in those two historic buildings.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“The more I studied the situation, the more I was convinced that the Southerner had never gotten over his resentment that the Negro was no longer his plaything, his servant, and his source of income.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

“During my stay here in your city [Chicago] 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 obeyed and supported by all members of your race. Until you do that much, it is useless to appeal to others to do for you what you can best do for yourselves.”
― William T. Stead, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells