White Public Sentiment and Black Political Agency in the Thought of Ida B. Wells

• In Event: Fighting against White Supremacy

Abstract

To what extent can historical knowledge motivate the pursuit of racial justice? The recent proliferation of public history initiatives in the United States—such as the New York Times’ “1619 Project” and the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum—implicitly answer yes. Such initiatives assume that white ignorance of past racial injustice explains the persistence of injustice today; conversely, it is assumed that if whites gain historical knowledge about racial injustice, then they are likely to be motivated to create a more racially just present and future. This paper examines Ida B. Wells’ writings—in particular, ‘A Red Record,’ ‘The Requirements of Southern Journalism,’ and ‘Southern Horrors,’ alongside unpublished archival materials—to challenge this assumption. Specifically, it asks: given an intransigent white public opinion that is unmoved by facts, what motivational potential do facts hold, and for whom? This paper shows that for Wells, while facts about lynching have limited motivational power for white Americans, they are significant for two other audiences: Black Americans and the British. According to Wells, facts are significant for Black Americans because they correct the white press’ distorted perceptions of Black life; this, then, is crucial for cultivating a Black subjectivity that can be politically mobilized to combat racial domination through boycott, emigration, and self-defense. Furthermore, Wells’ 1893 and 1894 speaking tours in Britain suggest that while she does not abandon the imperative to transform white public opinion in the U.S. against lynching, she changes her strategy. I argue that Wells’ speaking tours should be understood as a strategy to indirectly transform white public opinion in the U.S. As Wells sees it, once the British are persuaded of the truth of lynching and thereby publicly articulate their opposition to the practice, the high admiration by white Americans for British esteem will motivate white Americans to oppose lynching. In short, the desire for British approval is crucial for turning white public opinion in the U.S. against lynching. To the extent that facts matter as motivational sources of political action, then, Wells suggests that they matter for reasons beyond those conventionally assumed by contemporary liberals.

Author

• Jennie Choi Ikuta, University of Missouri-Columbia