Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. - Ida B. Wells

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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. - Ida B. Wells

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The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. - Ida B. Wells

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The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense. - Ida B. Wells

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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. - Ida B. Wells

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

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I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way... so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people. - Ida B. Wells

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I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon. - Ida B. Wells

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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. - Ida B. Wells

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America's greatest crime against the black man was not slavery or lynching, but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt. ― Malcolm X

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