Chapter 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Red Record This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Red Record Author: Ida B. Wells-Barnett Release date: February 8, 2005 [eBook #14977] Most recently updated: December 19, 2020 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14977 Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED RECORD *** Produced by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States By Ida B. Wells-Barnett 1895 [Transcriber's Note: This pamphlet was first published in 1895 but was subsequently reprinted. It's not apparent if the curiosities in spelling date back to the original or were introduced later; they have been retained as found, and the reader is left to decide. Please verify with another source before quoting this material.] PREFACE HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S LETTER DEAR MISS WELLS: Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison. You give us what you know and testify from actual knowledge. You have dealt with the facts with cool, painstaking fidelity, and left those naked and uncontradicted facts to speak for themselves. Brave woman! you have done your people and mine a service which can neither be weighed nor measured. If the American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half Christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame, and indignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read. But alas! even crime has power to reproduce itself and create conditions favorable to its own existence. It sometimes seems we are deserted by earth and Heaven--yet we must still think, speak and work, and trust in the power of a merciful God for final deliverance. Very truly and gratefully yours, FREDERICK DOUGLASS Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C. CONTENTS