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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
CHAPTER 1
The Case Stated 57