The Emergence of Jim Crow - America in Class

Address at Tremont Temple in the Boston MondayLectureship, Feb. 13, 1893, by Miss Ida B. WellsThe race problem or negro question, as it has beencalled, has been omnipresent and all-pervading since longbefore the Afro-American was raised from thedegradation of the slave to the dignity of the citizen.It has never been settled because the right methods havenot been employed in the solution. It is the Banquo'sghose of politics, religion, and sociology which will notdown at the bidding of those who are tormented with itsubiquitious appearance on every occasion. Times with-outnumber, since invested with citizenship, the race has beenindicted of rignorance, immorality and generalworthlessness—declared guilty and executed by its selfconstitutedjudges. The operations of law do not disposeof negroes fast enough, and lynching bees have becomethe favorite pasttime of the South. As excuse for thesame, a new cry, as false as it is foul, is raised in aneffort to blast race character, a cry which hasproclaimed to the world that virtue and innocence areviolated by Afro-Americans who must be killed likewild beasts to protect womanhoold and childhood.Ida B.Wells with the widow of Tom Mossamericainclass.org 19