Mary Church Terrell, the honorary president of the National Association of Colored Women, gave a speech which sought to uncover the faulty premises upon which the evils of lynching were excused. In it she challenges the common misconceptions of the public, which have been spawned by the Southerners and ignorantly lapped up by the Northerners. Terrell attempts to reach the passive bystanders of lynching by exposing the hideous truth, the actual cause for these unspeakable crimes, inciting in her audience an overwhelming urge to act against the injustice and cruelty. Terrell hopes to stimulate their minds into thinking logically about the black population rather than blindly following the characterization of negroes as presented by slandering dominance-seeking Southerners in her speech “Lynching from a Negro’s Point of View” (1904) as a means to stop the horrifying and widespread trend of lynching.
By portraying the South as the insidious antagonist, she absolves the North of some of the blame in the torture and murders inflicted by whites upon blacks. Terrell makes sure to showcase the guilt of the Southern states, pointing out their sinister deeds: “The South has so industriously, so persistently and eloquently preached the inferiority of the negro, that the North has apparently been converted to this view”. While the citizens of the North should rightfully support the anti-lynching cause, they are partially excused because they, too, are victims – duped by the malicious well-to-do from Dixieland. Undoubtedly, though, after Wells’ systematic enumeration and deconstruction of their lies, her audience must rightfully join the fight against lynching. When she elaborates on the deeper causes of lynching as “race hatred” and “the lawlessness so prevalent in the section where nine-tenths of the lynchings occur”, the implication is made that tangible support must come in the form of a way to regulate the South, whether it be with the physical presence of troops or just laws that will restrain the strains of violence. Her speech casts the Northerners not as participants in the crime, but as enablers of the South that permits these atrocities rather than rallying against them.
Terrell also works to justify the humanity of the black race, negating rumors that the majority of blacks are uneducated heathens. She denies that blacks are an inherently inferior race, giving the example of their loyalty during the trying years of the Civil War. Rather than abandon the families for whom they had served, when the “men of the South were off fighting to keep the negro in bondage, their mothers, wives and daughters were entrusted to the black man’s care. How faithfully and loyally he kept his sacred trust the records of history attest!” She shows the blacks’ clean record and faithfulness even to those who had mistreated them. If the blacks refused to retaliate against the white women while their men were away, how could they possibly condone rape – as thought by common opinion? Her proof of black peoples’ humanity also extends into her second argument – that “Negroes who have been educated in Northern institutions of learning… neither assault white women nor commit other crimes, as a rule.” They are thankful for the education that they received and use their knowledge to integrate into society as productive citizens. When she makes the point that blacks are just as capable of thought and emotion as whites, she can start to form a positive relationship with the white population. The whites should not only trust the blacks to act as decent members of society, but they (especially the women) should support them in their quest for peace and equal rights.
Terrell does a make a more explicit concession about her race that the uncompromising firebrand Ida B. Wells. By excluding the lesser educated negroes from her argument she decreases the wide array of people that she must defend in her speech. After she reports that those who have been accused by rape had not been “taught that he was the equal of white people” without denying that they were possibly “ignorant, repulsive in appearance and as near the brute creation as it is possible for a human being to be” rendered by the Southern testimonials, she separates them from the rest of her race, creating the image that these repulsive men are the true anomalies of blacks. She even suggests that they are a product of whites who appreciate their lack of motivation to attain social equality before she returns to blame the South for the common view that the entire black population is backwards. “Whenever Southern white people discuss lynching, they are prone to slander the whole negro race.” Were Terrell a statistician today she would surely argue about the sample size of the black people and the randomness of the sample included in the analysis of a large, diverse group of individuals who happen to be grouped together based only upon skin color.
Terrell continues her job as a whistleblower, pointing out faults in the media as a whole and she condemns the lack of support from religious leaders. When she blames the media she also warns the people to be careful about how they interpret the stories that they read since “it is not always possible to ascertain the facts from accounts in the newspapers.” It appears that the average reader must read between the lines to find truth in the published and printed articles, as they must realize when they attend church service. Appalled, Terrell reports, “Not only do ministers fail, as a rule, to protest strongly against the hanging and burning of negroes, but some actually condone the crime.” By explaining the logical errors that tarnish the credibility of claims against blacks and by pointing out the sources of misinformation, she makes her followers wary of the mental tricks set by other whites who will try to convince them that lynching is a legitimate way to punish perpetrators of the heinous crime of rape, who just happen to be black.
As a final testament to the truth that she has been telling, Terrell shows that she is not alone in decrying the Southern system of lynching. “In November, 1903, a manifesto [was] signed by delegates from all over the world was issued… by the International Socialist Bureau, protesting against the lynching of negroes in the United States.” She calls upon the morals and impartial judgment of a committee outside of the confines of the country – with a clearer view than those who are caught up in the skewed American media. While Terrell laments that “Lynching can never be suppressed in the South, until the masses of ignorant white people in that section are educated and lifted to a higher moral plane” she resurrects the hope that the enlightenment of the masses combined with collective action can eventually stop the lynching. Terrell pokes holes in the cognitive schema set up and promoted by whites to excuse lynching, revealing the truth and requesting that some sort of action is taken.
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