[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 102 (Friday, July 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1616-E1618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WELLS VS. WILLARD BY RACHEL KARRER

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON LEWIS

                              of kentucky

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 28, 2006

  Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleagues to the 
attached essay, Wells vs. Willard, by Rachel Karrer. Miss Karrer was a 
finalist in the National History Day Competition in Kentucky and 
recently

[[Page E1617]]

represented her state at the national competition.
  I had the privilege of meeting Miss Karrer and her family during 
their visit to Washington, DC.

                      [National History Day Paper]

                           Wells vs. Willard

                         (By Rachel C. Karrer)

       Wells and Willard, who were they? The more important 
     question is, `what did they do?' These two individuals were 
     activists; both were outspoken, uncompromising, and 
     passionate. And both of these activists just happened to be 
     women. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Frances E. Willard had 
     nothing and everything in common. They came from different 
     backgrounds, different families. They endured different 
     heartaches and tragedies, overcame different odds. They had 
     different educational structures and were even of separate 
     races. No, they weren't anything alike. And yet, they each 
     ended up leading in causes they believed in. Neither let 
     discouragement or setbacks blind them to their goal. Not even 
     when the discouragement and setbacks one woman experienced 
     were caused by the hand of the other. Ida Wells and Frances 
     Willard were influential women in their time, both standing 
     alone to lead in their causes. However, when it came to 
     standing together, one woman to support the other, neither 
     woman was willing to cross the cultural barriers of the time 
     and offer a helping hand, but turned against the other. 
     Because of Wells and Willard's failure to work together, 
     their animosity deeply hindered the progress of the anti-
     lynching movement.
       Ida B. Wells, born a slave, became a respected leader in 
     the anti-lynching movement. Freed from slavery shortly after 
     her birth, Wells' parents, James and Elizabeth Wells, made 
     sure she received an education. (McBride) Wells's mother 
     wanted to be able to read the Bible, so when the Shaw 
     University was established, Elizabeth Wells attended with her 
     children. (McBride) Her father, James Wells, was deeply 
     absorbed in politics and felt especially strong about racial 
     justice. It is likely that it was his interest in those 
     dealings that later inspired his daughter. (McBride)
       In 1876, both her parents and one younger sibling died. 
     (McBride) Unwilling to break her family apart, Wells became 
     the caretaker and provider of her five younger siblings at 
     the age of only fourteen. To provide for them, she applied 
     for a teaching position. In 1884, Wells moved to Memphis to 
     take a job as a teacher. (Lavender) During her summer 
     vacations, she furthered her education by attending teachers' 
     training courses at Fisk University. (Lavender) Afterwards, 
     she earned a position as a first grade teacher in the Memphis 
     city schools. (Lavender)
       On May 4, 1884, Ida B. Wells's life was altered once again. 
     (McBride) While traveling to Memphis, Wells was told by the 
     conductor to move from the parlor car to the smoking car, 
     which was reserved for people of color. When she refused, he 
     attempted to forcibly remove her. In retaliation, Wells 
     brought a suit against the railroad company and won. 
     (McBride) The taste of victory soured, however, when the 
     Tennessee Supreme Court overruled the decision. (McBride) 
     Even so, this incident sparked something in Wells that 
     eventually spread throughout the American nation and abroad. 
     (Lavender) At this point, Wells began to write.
       Her first piece was for The Living Way, an African-American 
     church weekly. (McBride) Wells wrote a series of articles 
     criticizing the education provided to African-American 
     children. Ironically, because of her statements, Wells lost 
     her teaching position in 1891. (Lavender) After this, she 
     joined the Memphis Star newspaper.
       Through her articles, Wells fought for the rights of 
     African-Americans, but in 1892, she began fighting for 
     something even more important; she began fighting for 
     their lives. In March of that year, three African-American 
     men were lynched on false charges. These men were Wells's 
     friends, and the rage inside her began to grow. (Lavender) 
     She attacked lynching, and challenged the actions of 
     whites by writing editorials and giving speeches about the 
     injustices that were being done to the people of her race. 
     She called Memphis, ``a town which . . . neither 
     protect[s] our lives and property, nor give[s] us a fair 
     trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in 
     cold blood when accused by white persons.'' (McBride) 
     Wells's outspoken opinions stirred up Memphis, but it was 
     not until she wrote her views on the consensual sexual 
     relationships between white women and African-American men 
     that her newspaper was sacked and destroyed by an angry 
     mob, followed by threats of lynching Wells herself. 
     (McBride) After this, she moved to Chicago.
       Though forced to leave Memphis, fear did not stop her from 
     continuing her fight in Chicago and even taking it to Europe. 
     She wrote Lynch Law in Georgia (1899), Lynch Law in America 
     (1900), and A Red Record (1895). These works studied 
     lynchings in America, showing that the number of deaths was 
     astonishing though the reasons were trivial. With these 
     works, Wells was educating the American people by publicizing 
     the cruelties inflicted on African-Americans in the South.
       Wells became Wells-Barnett in 1895. (McBride) Following her 
     marriage, many Americans doubted that she would continue in 
     her work, but through matrimony and motherhood, she continued 
     in her cause, leading to protect the rights and the lives of 
     people who had already endured so much.
       Like Wells, Frances E. Willard also had a lasting impact in 
     America. Her work resulted in two amendments to the 
     Constitution: one giving women the right to vote and another 
     prohibiting the sale and use of alcohol. (Hedrick)
       The daughter of Josiah and Mary Hill, Willard was born in 
     Churchville, New York. (Historical Association) Willard's 
     mother, Mary Thompson Hill, was adamant that her daughter be 
     educated as a lady. (Hedrick) At this time, a lady's 
     education did not encompass in-depth lessons in math or 
     science. (Hedrick) This type of education was made more 
     readily available to young ladies in the 1850s, at which time 
     Willard happily received it. (Hedrick) In 1857, she went to 
     the Milwaukee Normal Institute. The next year, she went to 
     Evanston College for Women in Illinois, now Northwestern 
     University, where she finished out her education. (Hedrick)
       Between 1860 an 1874, Willard held many teaching positions 
     in numerous schools. (Hedrick) Her last appointment was head 
     of the women's division at Northwestern University. (Hedrick)
       In 1874, at the end of her teaching career, Willard became 
     involved with the Women's Christian Temperance Union. 
     (Historical Association) She participated in its founding 
     convention and was elected corresponding secretary. 
     (Historical Association) Willard became a successful speaker 
     and social reformer, and was influential in the organization 
     of the Prohibition Party. (Historical Association) In 1879, 
     Willard was elected President of the Women's Christian 
     Temperance Union, and under her leadership it grew to be one 
     of the largest women's organizations in the nineteenth 
     century. (Historical Association)
       Both Wells and Willard were recognized and respected among 
     the American people. But, the truth of the matter is that the 
     Women's Christian Temperance Union was a well-known and 
     influential organization. As president of that organization, 
     Willard's voice and opinion carried a substantial amount of 
     weight, she being a leading figure in deciding which causes 
     the organization would back. Ida Wells was well aware of how 
     the Women's Christian Temperance Union's support could 
     benefit the anti-lynching movement. But, due to the views of 
     race at that time, that support, was not so easily gained. 
     And in seeking it, there was the bad result of a conflict 
     that arose between Willard and Wells. Wells accused the 
     Women's Christian Temperance Union of ignoring the racial 
     problem of the South, having ``no word, either of pity or 
     protest.'' (Wells 5) In return, Willard stated that Wells's 
     ``zeal for her race .  .  . clouded her perception.'' (Wells 
     4)
       In addition to Willard's seeming indifference, Wells was 
     angered by Willard's comments in reference to the colored 
     race. While Wells' fought for the African-American's whose 
     rights were being violated, Willard was sympathetic towards 
     the white race and the trials they were forced to endure. In 
     a New York newspaper, Willard stated, ``I pity the 
     southerners. . . . . The problem on their hands is 
     immeasurable. The colored race multiplies like the locusts of 
     Egypt.'' (Willard 9) In the same article she referred to 
     African-Americans as ``alien-illiterates,'' who could 
     ``neither read nor write, whose ideas are bounded by the 
     fence of his own field and the price of his own mule.'' 
     (Willard 9) In Willard's interview she painted whites as 
     victims and the African-Americans as villains. In reality, 
     however, it was the other way around and Wells had years of 
     collected data to prove it.
       While traveling abroad to gain sympathy and raise money, 
     Wells was interviewed by the Westminster Gazette, a British 
     newspaper. During this interview she related some of the 
     facts she had gathered about the practice of lynching in the 
     United States. For example, four-fifths of lynchings in the 
     United States were practiced on African-Americans and in 1893 
     and 158 out of 200 lynching victims were African-Americans. 
     (Westminster Gazette) She also stated that of the 158 
     African-Americans victims only thirty of them were charged 
     with a crime against women or children. (Westminster Gazette) 
     The people that had supposedly committed these crimes were, 
     more often than not, innocent. (Westminster Gazette) But, 
     when it came to lynching, ``innocent until proven guilty'' 
     were empty words.
       Wells felt that Willard and the Women's Christian 
     Temperance Union were indifferent about the issues in the 
     lynching controversy. But, in Willard's 1894 Women's 
     Christian Temperance Union presidential address she defended 
     herself and the organization; ``Much apprehension has arisen 
     in the last year concerning the attitude of our union toward 
     the colored people, and an official explanation is in 
     order.'' (Willard 8) In her explanation she referred to her 
     1890 interview, in which she stated that the African-American 
     man's ``altitude reaches no higher than the personal liberty 
     of the saloon and the power of appreciating the amount of 
     liquor that dollar will buy.'' (Willard 9) In her address she 
     defended herself saying that she had not intended to 
     discriminate against African-American people. (Willard 8) 
     Willard stated that it was ``inconceivable'' that the Women's 
     Christian Temperance Union would ever excuse lynching no 
     matter what the circumstances. She also made it a point to 
     make a resolution in regard to the affair: ``Resolved, that 
     we are opposed to lynching as a method of punishment, no 
     matter what the crime, and irrespective of the race by which 
     the crime is

[[Page E1618]]

     committed, believing that every human being is entitled to 
     be tried by a jury of his peers.'' (Willard 8)
       In Willard's address she specifically mentioned Ida Wells 
     and her efforts in the anti-lynching movement. Willard 
     claimed that Wells's ardor for her race was keeping her from 
     recognizing friends from foes. She also talked of Wells's 
     observations concerning the consensual relationships between 
     white women and African-American men. On this point, Wells 
     and Willard's opinions contrasted greatly. It was Wells's 
     belief that many of the ``rapes'' for which countless 
     African-American men were lynched were actually consensual 
     relationships. Nevertheless, she believed that it was for the 
     white man's pride of race, not for justice or even for the 
     white women's reputation, that sent many African-American 
     males to their death: ``You see, the white man has never 
     allowed his women to hold the sentiment 'black but comely' on 
     which he has so freely acted himself.'' (Westminster Gazette) 
     It was Willard's opinion that with these statements Wells 
     ``had put an imputation upon half the white race in this 
     country that [was] unjust, and saving the rarest exceptional 
     instances, wholly without foundation'' and with these 
     statements Wells was thwarting her cause. (Willard 6)
       By the end of the summer of 1894, Wells was thoroughly 
     displeased with the actions of Willard and the Women's 
     Christian Temperance Union, and she had no qualms about 
     expressing her anger. In one of her numerous writings, Wells 
     stated, ``the charge has been made that I have attacked Miss 
     Willard and misrepresented the W.C.T.U. If to state the facts 
     is misrepresentation, then I plead guilty to the charge.'' 
     (Wells 5) In A Red Record, Wells spoke of the resolution made 
     in Willard's Women's Christian Temperance Union presidential 
     address: ``Miss Willard gave assurance that such a resolution 
     [of protest against brutality towards colored people] would 
     be adopted, and that assurance was relied on.'' (Wells 5) 
     But, in the end, these assurances amounted to nothing because 
     during the Women's Christian Temperance Union national 
     meeting in the summer of 1894, no anti-lynching resolutions 
     were passed. (Smith)
       With the statements made by Willard, so pointedly, on the 
     behalf of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, why was it 
     that when it came time to act, those promises were not 
     honored? This outcome was the result of the presence of many 
     southern delegates at the meeting and Frances Willard's 
     effort to pacify them. (Smith) By attempting to keep the 
     peace with one party that ``great Christian body . . . . 
     wholly ignored the seven millions of colored people of this 
     country whose plea was for a word of sympathy and support for 
     the movement in their behalf,'' (Westminster Gazette) and Ida 
     Wells ``greatly regretted'' the outcome of this meeting. 
     (Smith) The very next year, in the Baltimore Herald, Willard 
     wrote that they had done the best they could under the 
     circumstances (Smith) but to many Americans it was Wells who 
     gained their sympathy and Willard who was criticized. Willard 
     must have realized this because in 1897, it was written in a 
     Cleveland newspaper that Willard's conduct toward Wells at 
     the national meeting seemed ``still to worry her, as it ought 
     to.'' (Cleveland Gazette)
       Lynching went into a decline by the twentieth century. 
     (Abrams) In 1935, only twenty lynchings were reported and by 
     the 1960s, with the enforcement of civil rights laws and 
     changes in racial attitudes, the performance of lynchings 
     died away. (Abrams) Between 1882 and 1968 there were 4,730 
     lynchings in the United States. (Lynching) Of these, 3,440 
     were African-American men and women. (Lynching) However, with 
     Willard's influence, and with her, the support of every 
     member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, racial 
     attitudes might have been altered years before. Prejudices 
     and hate could have been softened, lives could have been 
     saved. If only time wasted arguing could have been spent 
     broadening the horizons of the American people, helping 
     them to see the cruelties they placed on people whose only 
     difference was their race. Perhaps Willard's voice along 
     with Wells' reaching out to the American people would not 
     have accomplished much. But it would have accomplished 
     something. It would have given the anti-lynching movement 
     the boost it needed, the boost it was asking for. True, at 
     a time when ``Jim Crow'' laws were made specifically to 
     keep the African-American people in a place of 
     inferiority, crossing the lines of segregation and 
     discrimination would have been extremely difficult. But, 
     someone at some point did eventually cross those lines, 
     otherwise we wouldn't be where we are today. Had Ida Wells 
     and Frances Willard joined together, important civil 
     rights movements could have been put into effect much 
     sooner. There is no way to judge the years that were 
     squandered or the lives that could have been saved.
       The wills and views of Frances E. Willard and those of Ida 
     B. Wells-Barnett, continued to clash throughout the years, 
     right up until Willard's death in 1898. (Historical 
     Association) Neither woman ever conceded. Wells continued in 
     her campaign for the rights of the African-American people 
     until her death in 1931. (McBride) The women each accused the 
     other of misrepresenting her. But maybe it wasn't 
     misrepresentation. Perhaps it was merely a lack of 
     understanding, or even the desire to understand. When asked 
     why no one in the North protested the racial prejudices in 
     the South and their deadly outcome, Wells' answer was ``they 
     are sick and hopeless, and shut their eyes.'' (Westminster 
     Gazette) Standing where we are today, we can easily judge 
     these two women and say what they should have done. But what 
     we fail to realize is that America then and America now are 
     two very different places. African-Americans were not seen in 
     the same light as they are today. In today's culture we are 
     brought up viewing one another as equals. This is because the 
     leaders of our past shed some light on the flaws of our 
     beliefs in order to change our future. But to do this, they 
     had to be willing to put themselves on the line, to cross the 
     cultural barriers that tried to hold them back. Wells and 
     Willard were leaders, they were respected and had they really 
     tried, they too, could have crossed those barriers. If not 
     for the antagonism between these two very different women, 
     had they not failed to stand together and face America, many 
     eyes could have, and would have, been opened.

                          ____________________