Ida B. Wells: “Lynching: Our National Crime”

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Compare and contrast Wells with the leading African American figure of the period 1895–1915, Booker T. Washington. Is change a slow and incremental process, or does change emerge from a more direct confrontation with an issue?
• 2. Wells was one among a relatively small number of African American women who occupied a public sphere when such public forums were not considered the place for women. Can you name others?
• 3. African American clubwomen, led by organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women, played a vital role in the antilynching movement. What other questions affecting African American people in general and African American women in particular were part of their agenda?
• 4. Assess the “power of the press” then and now as a transformative institution for social change.