Campaigning against Lynching with Ida B. Wells and Harry C. Smith
Campaigning against Lynching with Ida B. Wells and Harry C. Smith
Chapter 5 highlights Tourgée’s extensive anti-lynching journalism, which filled his “Bystander” column from 1888 on. The chapter centers around Tourgée’s collaboration with Ida B. Wells and Harry C. Smith, editor of the Cleveland Gazette, in a three-way campaign against lynching through the press, public lectures, and the legislative arena. The three journalists formulated similar critiques of lynching, quoted each other’s writings, promoted each other’s political agendas, and paid homage to each other. All three not only exposed the sexual and racial double standard used to justify lynching, but uncovered the economic motives behind mob violence and called for armed resistance against lynch mobs. After his election to the Ohio state legislature, Smith secured passage of an anti-lynching law that Tourgée drafted, which became a model for those in nine other states, as well as for the NAACP.
Keywords: Lynching, Mob violence, Sexual and racial double standard, “Bystander” column, Ida B. Wells, Harry C. Smith, Cleveland Gazette, Ohio anti-lynching law
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