The lynchings of Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William Stewart
By 1892, Ida B Wells’ Memphis paper was thriving. She traveled the Mississippi Delta selling subscriptions, tripling circulation. <em>Free Speech</em> was editorially fearless: Ida sharply called out any accommodation of white supremacy, even by Black community leaders she knew. Thread. <br /><br />Thomas Moss & his wife Betty were Ida B Wells’ best friends. They ran the co-op People’s Grocery in the Curve, a Black section of Memphis. W.H.Barrett, the white owner of a nearby grocery that had once had a neighborhood monopoly, took every opportunity to harass his competition. <br /><br />@<a href="https://twitter.com/lynchingsites" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lynchingsites</a> WH Barrett spread rumors of a race riot - a setup that ended with plainclothes Memphis police being shot by People’s Grocery guards. Memphis whites looted the store, Black people in the Curve were arrested at random, and Tom Moss and other black men were jailed without bail. <br /><br />A Black militia group, the Tennessee Rifles, knew lynching was likely, so patrolled the jail - but after 3 days the sheriff seized their guns & those of all Black citizens of Memphis. On March 9, 1892, at 3 a.m., a white mob dragged out Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, Wm. Stewart. <br /><br />McDowell fought hard, grabbing a lyncher’s gun and not letting go until shot through his hand. Tom Moss begged on behalf of himself, his child & his pregnant wife. Instead of mercy, he was asked for his last words. “Tell my people to go West - there is no justice for them here."
Daily Suffragist
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24/11/2020
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, part II
I am particularly fond of Josephine St Pierre Ruffin because she was an avid defender of Ida B Wells. Josephine moved among society women both white and Black and wasn’t afraid to disagree with them, especially in defense of unpopular or uncomfortable ideas. Thread. <br /><br />Ida B. Wells was often the source of those unpopular ideas. Josephine was already a prominent publisher when she heard Ida speak in front of 400 New Yorkers. The 1892 speech launched Ida’s anti-lynching campaign and galvanized Af-Am women to become more explicitly political. A Memphis newspaper, furious that Ida was exposing lynchings, called her a “wench” and a “black harlot.” Nasty still, in 1892 those words were calculated to exploit stereotypes Black women faced constantly, and to undermine Ida’s credibility within the Black community. <br /><br />Josephine wasn’t having it. She defended Ida unconditionally, and made clear that the Woman’s Era Club of Boston believed in Ida Wells’ “purity of purpose and character.” She defended her again when Ida picked a fight with a very powerful woman. Ida pointed out that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union wasn’t doing much to fight lynching. (They weren’t - they believed the lie that lynchings punished Black men for raping white women.) In criticizing WCTU, she took on Frances Willard, its powerful leader. Wealthy British supporters of American reform were devoted to Willard, and insisted Ida was lying. Even Frederick Douglass defended the powerful Willard, but Josephine sided with Ida. <br /><br />“Doubtless Miss Willard is a good friend to colored people,” said Josephine’s paper, “...but we have failed to hear from her and the WCTU any flat-footed denunciation of lynching and lynchers.” <a href="http://womenwriters.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/advocacy/content.php?level=div&id=era2_04.15.02&document=era2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read the whole editorial here:</a><br /><br />Josephine stood by Ida in internal battles among the clubwomen through the years, and against Booker T. Washington. I don’t think they were close friends. I like to imagine she was loyal because Ida stood for the brutal truth, and Josephine respected that. #BlackSuffragists
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27/02/2020
IdaB in Brooklyn
When Ida B Wells arrived in Brooklyn, it was still its own city. (The 5 boros consolidated in 1898.) How imposing the massive metropolis must have felt to Ida, forced to flee Memphis in 1892 after publishing “The Truth About Lynching.” <br /><br />Ida’s life-long crusade against lynching began to take shape while living on Gold Street. She eventually settled in Chicago, but Brooklyn was where she learned to be a public speaker - in part by asking Maritcha Remond Lyons, who had bested her in a debate, to coach her. <br /><br />Today Brooklyn thanked her for her service to the nation by naming Gold Street “Ida B Wells Place.” It was cold, but 100 people stayed to hear Ida’s biographer Paula Giddings, and her greatest contemporary inheritor, @<a href="https://twitter.com/nhannahjones" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nhannahjones</a>. <br /><br />Ida’s great-grandson Benjamin Duster and 2 of her great-great-daughters were there too, plus @<a href="https://twitter.com/ljoywilliams" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ljoywilliams</a> and many more. Prof. Giddings was polite enough not to mention the rivalry between Brooklyn & Manhattan women that she describes in her book...but Manhattan should be feeling competitive! The (now demolished) hall where Ida gave her very 1st public speech was right by Bryant Park. Isn't it time for a plaque? #BlackSuffragists #Suffrage100
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07/03/2020