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Primary sourceBook1892

Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases

Ida B. Wells · 1892

Ida B. Wells's 1892 anti-lynching pamphlet, written after the Memphis lynching of her friends, arguing that rape charges were a pretext for racial terror.

Wells wrote this pamphlet herself, launching her public campaign against lynching after her friends were killed.

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Title page of the 1892 pamphlet 'Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases' on aged, stained paper. Below the title is an engraved portrait of a woman with hair piled high, and the caption 'Miss IDA B. WELLS'. Text reads 'Price, Fifteen Cents' and 'The New York Age Print, 1892'.
Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, New York Age Print, 1892.

About this source

What it is

This is the title page of a pamphlet written by Ida B. Wells and published in 1892 by the New York Age Print. It expands on an editorial she wrote after the lynching of three of her friends in Memphis, an act that led to the destruction of her own newspaper, The Free Speech.

Why it matters

Southern Horrors was one of the first works to publicly argue that lynching was not punishment for crime but a tool of racial and economic control. It marked the start of Wells's long career as an investigative journalist and anti-lynching campaigner, and shows how she used print to fight back after being silenced and exiled from her home city.

Look closer

  • Why might Wells have included her own portrait on the cover?
  • What does the price and publisher tell you about how the pamphlet was distributed?
  • Why does she call this

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ida B. Wells on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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