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46 pages 1 hour read

Ida B. Wells

The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1895

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Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “Lynched for Anything or Nothing (Lynched for Wife Beating)”

In Chapter 5, Wells highlights lynchings that are tied to either misdemeanors or no crime at all. Among white citizens, domestic abuse elicits a fine, but for Dave Jackson, a Black man in Louisiana, the act led to a lynching. In Knox Point, Louisiana, a white mob lynched two Black men in connection with some stolen hogs; the two men were never afforded a trial. Five Black citizens were killed on suspicion of well poisoning after a white family became sick; no other evidence was provided. Wells explains that minor offenses are often all it takes to lead to a lynching, but the record proves that no real offense is necessary to lead to the vicious act:

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of this record of lynch law for the year 1893, is the remarkable fact that five hundred beings were lynched and that the matter was considered of so little importance that the powerful press bureaus of the country did not consider the matter of enough importance to ascertain the causes for which they were hanged (60).

Wells suggests that the public is so desensitized to lynching that nothing is done when a Black person is killed by a white mob, and society has little difficulty assuming Black people are guilty. However, the reasons for lynching are often petty and devoid of evidence, as in the case of three men who were killed for being “saucy” toward a white person.

White mobs in lynching cases transcend law and act with impunity. When the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, insisted that a Black man named Smith who was charged with assaulting a white woman receive due process, his efforts were eventually thwarted by the mob. At first, Mayor Trout insisted no lynching would take place in the large city of Roanoke, and he employed a militia to protect Smith, who had been arrested for arguing with a white woman over a transaction at her market booth. The woman did not press charges against Smith, and both had participated in the quarrel. The mob shot and killed the militia soldiers Mayor Trout employed to protect Smith, nine of whom died. Mayor Trout was forced to leave the city, and Smith was left to the mob.

When a Black man named Lee Walker in Tennessee approached a carriage with two white women and asked for food, he was charged with assault. While the mob searched for Walker, they shot and killed an innocent Black man for refusing to stop when they asked. Walker was arrested, and a small mob demanded he be turned over for lynching. Although the sheriff tried to calm the crowd, he did not use force, though reports indicate that the sheriff had plenty of men and clubs to quell the mob. Walker was stabbed and hanged. Although a detective tried to dissuade the mob from burning the body to allow for an investigation, the mob did not listen. Relic hunters took pieces of rope, teeth, and other artifacts to sell.

Chapter 6 Summary: “History of Some Cases of Rape”

Wells takes an in-depth look at the charges of rape and attempted rape of white women, which dominated lynchings in 1893 and 1894. Of the 1,115 Black citizens executed by white mobs in that year, 348 were tied to charges of rape. These cases include consensual sexual encounters between Black men and white women, and news outlets and political figures took great pains to suppress the details of relationships and frequently inflated stories to incite the anger of white readers. One editor named Dr. Hass claimed that more than 300 white women had been sexually assaulted by Black men within three months but provided no evidence to support these claims.

White women who entered relationships with Black men often lied to protect their reputations. The wife of J. C. Underwood, for example, claimed that a Black man named William Offett entered her home against her will and sexually assaulted her. After Offett remained in prison for four years, Mrs. Underwood confessed to her husband that she had pursued Offett. When 17-year-old Lillie Bailey gave birth to a Black baby in a Tennessee hospital, the Memphis (Tenn.) Ledger attempted to incite a mob despite the girl’s wishes. Bailey refused to give the name of the father of her child, and Wells points out that the man would have likely been killed by a white mob had she revealed his name. Another woman charged a man named Edward Coy in Arkansas with rape after a year-long relationship. After his death, the Chicago Inter Ocean published an article explaining that the woman had been threatened into making the charge.

In Shelby County, Tennessee, a Black man named Richard Neal confessed that a white woman offered to have sex with him for 25 cents. He agreed, and a mob of 200 white citizens hanged him for the act. When he was brought to the woman for identification, she was unsure: “I think he is the man. I am almost certain of it. If he isn’t the man he is exactly like him” (80). The crowd hanged Neal, and the sheriff used Neal’s dead body to warm his feet on the carriage ride home.

Lynch Law is also subject to political maneuvering. When John Peterson was arrested for suspected rape, he escaped and put himself under the protection of Governor Tillman, claiming he could secure an alibi from white witnesses. While a white reporter tracked down Peterson’s alibi, a mob approached Tillman, demanding he hand over Peterson. Tillman, who was up for reelection, complied.

Media outlets also play an important role in supporting Lynch Law. For example, the Associated Press published a story that a sheriff’s eight-year-old daughter was raped by a Black man. Further investigation revealed that the daughter was 18 and that her relationship with the man in question was consensual. Another story, which ran in the Cleveland (Ohio) Leader in 1894, accused a man named Charles O’Neil of raping a four-year-old girl. However, it failed to run a follow-up story when the investigation proved that the girl’s mother falsely accused O’Neil to get out of paying a debt she owed him.

Wells provides ample evidence that the focus on protecting white women from assault by Black men does not translate to protecting Black women from assaults by white men. She outlines numerous cases in which white men assaulted Black women and were never indicted or charged. When one father of a young woman applied for a warrant for arrest, the judge refused to pursue the matter further. No mobs of Black men sought justice outside of the judicial system.

Chapters 5-6 Analysis

In Chapter 5, Wells carries forward her argument that lynching has little to do with justice. She shares several cases in which Black citizens were lynched for misdemeanors, false accusations, or simply looking like another Black man. In each of these cases, the victims were killed without evidence or investigation. Wells speaks directly to the idea that lynching is a way for white Southern citizens to enact justice when they feel the legal system has failed. Those who support lynchings see themselves as vigilantes acting out a higher moral code. However, Wells asserts that lynchings are the result of Racist Violence as a Mechanism for Power. The function of lynchings is not to enforce justice; it is to maintain white power in the American South.

One way that white supremacists use racist violence to maintain power is through fear and intimidation. Wells opens Chapter 5 with the case of two Black men who were killed for stealing hogs despite there being no evidence against them. In this case, it did not matter who was killed for the theft; what mattered was that the lynching served as a message of fear and intimidation, reminding Black citizens that their lives were not their own and could be taken away at any time for any reason. This is further evidenced by stories of lynchings that were never investigated; the victims remained unidentified, and their alleged crimes were never reported to officials.

Although lynchings are used to maintain white power and to promote fear and intimidation, a socially acceptable narrative is needed to justify this form of racist violence. In Chapter 1, Wells outlines excuses used by white citizens to justify Lynch Law. The third excuse and arguably the most prevalent is the idea that Black citizens are a danger to white women. Chapter 6 details many of the cases in which Black men were killed for alleged rapes of white women. The charge of rape was applied to any physical interaction between Black men and white women, including consensual relationships. Wells shows how in many cases, newspaper outlets and white supremacists fabricated stories of rape and threatened white women into making false reports. In other cases, white women used charges of rape to escape accusations themselves or to get out of monetary commitments. The myth of the dangerous Black man created a foundation for white supremacists to enact racist violence against Black men for almost any reason, all under the guise of protecting white women. Wells calls out the hypocrisy of this justification, detailing the atrocities committed against Black women by white men. When the tables are turned, white men are neither indicted nor investigated. In this distorted reality, white men may commit violent crimes against Black citizens without repercussions for their actions, while Black citizens are killed for any reason; this directly corresponds to the theme of Mob Mentality and White Immunity. Additionally, Wells notes that domestic violence and rape between white men and women are considered misdemeanors, showing how patriarchal ideals can be weaponized against Black men without protecting women at all.

The myth of Black men raping white women has persisted since Wells’s writing. In her 1981 work Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, bell hooks details the targeted effort of white supremacists to establish a narrative of Black men as dangerous and how this affected Black populations throughout the 20th century. In the 21st century, Black authors like Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt (Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do) and Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness) examine how the myth of Black men as dangerous continues to impact modern attitudes and perspectives. The prevalence of police shootings of Black men and children and the way mass incarceration has an outsized effect on Black men is directly related to the attentional bias developed by this harmful narrative.

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