Question

At the beginning of the reading "The Crusade for Justice," Ida B. Wells describes events in Memphis which she says changed her life. Quickly summarize those events .At the beginning of the reading "The Crusade for Justices" Ida B. Well describes events in Memphis which she says changed her life. Quickly summarize those events in your own words. Wells also says that, with lynching cases, she had previously assumed "that perhaps the brute deserved death anyhow and the mob was justified in taking his life."

What does she mean by that? How and why did her view then change?

Answer 1

Ida B. Wells' life changed after witnessing events in Memphis where a friend was lynched, leading her to research and document lynchings as tools for enforcing white supremacy, challenging her prior belief that such acts might be justified.

Step-by-step explanation:

At the beginning of The Crusade for Justice, Ida B. Wells recounts transformative events in Memphis that dramatically altered her life. Wells, born into slavery, became an influential journalist and fierce advocate for the rights of African Americans and women. In 1883, she challenged segregation by refusing to vacate her seat on a railroad, leading to her arrest and subsequent lawsuit against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.

Wells had initially believed that victims of lynching might have committed crimes that justified such actions by mobs. However, her perspective shifted when a close friend was lynched, prompting her to investigate and subsequently expose the true motives behind lynchings. Through meticulous research, she illustrated that these atrocities were not about crime but rather tools of maintaining white supremacy by targeting individuals who threatened the racial status quo.

Her bravery and dedication to uncovering the truth about lynchings paved the way for the anti-lynching movement. Wells' groundbreaking investigations into the lynchings revealed that such acts were often retaliations against African Americans who dared to defy societal expectations, such as voting, conducting successful business, or simply not yielding to a white person.