Status Updates From Collected Works of Ida B. W...

Tough to get through, this is a seemingly endless account of lynchings. I was warned off in the introduction when Ida B Wells declared that it was an awful business, but someone had to collect these facts and make it known. This was written in the 1890s. What must it have been like for her? America has attempted to erase a genocide ...

"The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled."

"Public sentiment has had a slight "reaction though not sufficient to stop the crusade of lawlessness and lynching."

Written in the 1890's, echoes of January 6, 2021...sigh

Her written commentary on the lynchings in the South in the late 1800s and disparate treatment of black men with white women vs white men with black women. Indeed, it was common for white women to voluntarily mix with black men only to turn on them once the baby came. White men with black women was also common, but the resulting offspring not near as consequential. Sigh...

Ida B. Weld Barnett is a brave woman and righteous journalist. I most likely will have nightmares having read the accounts of lynchings and burning of black citizens - the barbarism is unthinkable- this was within the years my great-grandparents were alive....not thousands of years ago when Romans were crusifying people. Anyone who doubts the legitimate concerns of black lives matter needs to read this collection.

I can hardly get through a page without stopping to add notes about the thoughts and actions of deep seeded racism, and the evidence of how it functions.