Ida B. Wells Quotes

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.

Those who commit the murders write the reports.

Virtue knows no color line.

The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.

The appetite grows for what it feeds on.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

In slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive by the frequency and severity of the scourging, but, with freedom, a new system of intimidation came into vogue; the Negro was not only whipped and scourged; he was killed.

The appeal to the white man's pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.

I honestly believe I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches.

The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation and murder.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way towards proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.

Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter.

In fact, for all kinds of offenses - and, for no offenses - from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same.

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

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.