[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 16560-16562] [From the U.S. 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 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' 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' 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' 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' 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) [[Page 16561]] 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' ``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 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' ardor for her race was keeping her from recognizing friends from foes. She also talked of Wells' 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' 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. [[Page 16562]] 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. ____________________