1) Resistance: Ida Wells

• Born into slavery; family became middle class
• Gendered expectations of "ladies"
• Challenged segregation
• Became part-owner of Memphis newspaper

1892 Lynching in Memphis

Editorial criticism of lynching

Exile

Attributes as effective messenger:

African American: access to information, motive to combat lynching

Woman: credibly question "rape" narrative

Middle-class "Lady": respectable status, language, deportment

Journalist: access to media, skilled in communication, national network

"Credentials": approval from Frederick Douglass

Lynching not about sexual threat from black men

• Sexual relations between black men and white women are (often) consensual
• White hypocrisy with assault of black women
• Minority of lynching events have rape accusation
• Victims of lynching not matching the narrative

Lynching not about sexual threat from black men

• consensual: white women admitting this; white news accounts
• hypocrisy: stories from African American community
• rape accusations: statistics on lynchings
• victims: statistics on lynchings

Lynching about racial oppression

• Connection between lynching and segregation
• "Moral depravity" cannot be worse with emancipation
• Lynching for voting first (Birth of a Nation)
• Victims of lynching often not guilty of real crimes
• White legal system can easily convict
• White domination of government, but still lawless
• lynching is degradation of white morality

Lynching threat to law and order/ civilization

Resonant Frames

• What kinds of messages would work with different audiences?
• What kinds of evidence would be most effective?

New Narratives

• Use of white press against itself
• Use of first-hand experience
• Hiring private investigators

Gaining Access

• Played up middle-class sensibilities
• "Forced" to address scandalous issues of lynching, rape
• Portrayed herself as a political novice
• Worked with male allies (e.g. Charles Aked, Frederick Douglass)
• Travel to the UK

Kinds of activism

• Publish in newspapers
• Hold lecture series
• Pamphlets
• Travel to the UK
• Network with publishers, politicians

Effective?

• UK audiences condemn American lynching
• US audiences concerned about reputation
• Southern papers irate