Ida B. Wells-Barnett

On this day in 1931, Ida B. Wells-Barnett died at the age of 69. Wells-Barnett dedicated her life to being a journalist and pushing for anti-lynching in this country, after a good friend of hers, Thomas Moss, and two other men were lynched in Mississippi. Her friend was a local businessman and taught Sunday school, and with his death, she would travel across the country criticizing the barbaric process. Even though she was threatened and her printing press was burned down, Wells-Barnett never stopped her work and also was a part of the Women's suffrage movement. Rest in peace. Quote on lynching:

"The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd. If the leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the body and the victim is then roasted to death. This has been done in Texarkana and Paris, Tex., in Bardswell, Ky., and in Newman, Ga. In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. The mayor gave the school children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that the people might see a human being burned to death. In Texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their helpless victim. At Newman, Ga., of the present year, the mob tried every conceivable torture to compel the victim to cry out and confess, before they set fire to the faggots that burned him. But their trouble was all in vain--he never uttered a cry, and they could not make him confess. . . ."

Read the rest here:

http://newsone.com/2306031/ida-b-wells-barnett-death/