In March of 1892, three Black grocery store owners in Memphis, Tennessee, were murdered by a mob of white men. Lynchings like these were happening all over the American South, often without any subsequent legal investigation or consequences for the murderers. But this time, a young journalist and friend of the victims set out to expose the truth about these killings. Her reports would shock the nation and launch her career as an investigative journalist, civic leader, and civil rights advocate. Her name was Ida B. Wells.
1982 年三月, 田納西州曼非斯的 三位雜貨店黑人店主 被一群白人暴民謀殺。 像這樣的私刑在美國 南方各地都在發生, 通常事後也不會有相關法律調查, 兇手不用承受任何後果。 但,這次, 一位年輕記者, 也是受害者的朋友, 打算揭露這些殺戮的真相。 她的報導震驚了全國, 也讓她開始了新的職涯, 身為調查記者、 公民領袖,以及民權捍衛者。 她的名字叫做艾達威爾斯。
Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862, several months before the Emancipation Proclamation released her and her family. After losing both parents and a brother to yellow fever at the age of 16, she supported her five remaining siblings by working as a schoolteacher in Memphis, Tennessee.
艾達威爾斯生在密西西比州的 霍利斯普林斯,出生就是奴隸, 生於 1862 年 7 月 16 日, 幾個月之後, 解放奴隸宣言就解放了 她和她的家人。 十六歲時,因為黃熱病, 她失去了雙親和一位兄弟, 之後就由她來扶養 剩下的五位手足, 她在田納西州曼非斯 擔任學校老師。
During this time, she began working as a journalist. Writing under the pen name “Iola,” by the early 1890s she gained a reputation as a clear voice against racial injustice and become co-owner and editor of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. She had no shortage of material: in the decades following the Civil War, Southern whites attempted to reassert their power by committing crimes against Black people including suppressing their votes, vandalizing their businesses, and even murdering them.
在這段時間,她也開始當記者。 用「艾歐拉」的筆寫文章, 1890 年代初期, 因為明確發聲對抗 種族不公,讓她成名, 成為《曼非斯自由言論與前照燈》的 共同所有人及編輯。 她完全不缺素材: 在內戰之後的數十年, 南方白人嘗試重申他們的權力, 做法是對黑人做出犯罪行為, 包括打壓他們的投票, 任意破壞他們的生意, 甚至謀殺他們。
After the murder of her friends, Wells launched an investigation into lynching. She analyzed specific cases through newspaper reports and police records, and interviewed people who had lost friends and family to lynch mobs. She risked her life to get this information. As a Black person investigating racially motivated murders, she enraged many of the same southern white men involved in lynchings.
在她的朋友被謀殺之後, 威爾斯發動了對私刑的調查。 她分析了報紙報導 和警方記錄中的特定案件, 訪問了因為私刑暴民 而失去朋友和家人的人。 她冒著她的生命危險 取得這些資訊。 她是黑人,且在調查 因種族動機而行兇的兇手, 因此惹火了這些 涉入私刑的南方白人。
Her bravery paid off. Most whites had claimed and subsequently reported that lynchings were responses to criminal acts by Black people. But that was not usually the case. Through her research, Wells showed that these murders were actually a deliberate, brutal tactic to control or punish black people who competed with whites. Her friends, for example, had been lynched when their grocery store became popular enough to divert business from a white competitor.
她的勇氣帶來了好結果。 大部分的白人都聲稱, 且後續也描述說 私刑的原因是因為 這些黑人有犯罪行為在先。 但通常實情都不是如此。 透過她的研究, 威爾斯證明了這些兇手 其實都是深思熟慮的人, 用殘酷的戰術來控制 或懲罰和白人競爭的黑人。 比如,她的朋友, 被私刑殺害的是因為 他們的雜貨店當時變得很熱門, 會影響到白人競爭者的生意。
Wells published her findings in 1892. In response, a white mob destroyed her newspaper presses. She was out of town when they struck, but they threatened to kill her if she ever returned to Memphis. So she traveled to New York, where that same year she re-published her research in a pamphlet titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. In 1895, after settling in Chicago, she built on Southern Horrors in a longer piece called The Red Record. Her careful documentation of the horrors of lynching and impassioned public speeches drew international attention.
1982 年,威爾斯發表了她的發現。 回應她的是一群白人暴民 摧毀了她的報紙出版社。 他們攻擊時,她不在鎮上, 但他們威脅說如果她回到 曼非斯就要殺害她。 所以她到了紐約, 同一年,她再次用一本小冊子 發表了她的研究,叫做: 《南方恐怖:私刑法的各種面向》。 1895 年,她在芝加哥定居, 根據《南方恐怖》, 她又寫了一篇更長的文章, 題目叫《紅色記錄》。 她細節記載了私刑的恐怖, 再加上她充滿激情的公開演說, 吸引了國際的關注。
Wells used her newfound fame to amplify her message. She traveled to Europe, where she rallied European outrage against racial violence in the American South in hopes that the US government and public would follow their example. Back in the US, she didn’t hesitate to confront powerful organizations, fighting the segregationist policies of the YMCA and leading a delegation to the White House to protest discriminatory workplace practices.
威爾斯用她的新名氣 來擴大她的訊息。 她旅行到歐洲,在那裡, 她團結了歐洲人對於 美國南方種族暴力的怒火, 希望美國政府 和大眾能夠追隨他們。 回到美國,她毫不猶豫地 面對強大的組織, 對抗種 YMCA 的族隔離政策, 並領導一個代表團到白宮, 去抗議在工作場所的歧視行為。 在做這些的時候, 她是沒有公民權的。
She did all this while disenfranchised herself. Women didn’t win the right to vote until Wells was in her late 50s. And even then, the vote was primarily extended to white women only. Wells was a key player in the battle for voting inclusion, starting a Black women’s suffrage organization in Chicago. But in spite of her deep commitment to women’s rights, she clashed with white leaders of the movement. During a march for women’s suffrage in Washington D.C., she ignored the organizers’ attempt to placate Southern bigotry by placing Black women in the back, and marched up front alongside the white women.
到了威爾斯快六十歲時, 女性才贏得投票權。 即使那時,有投票權的 也主要是白人女性。 在擴展投票權上, 威爾斯扮演了關鍵的角色, 她在芝加哥創始了 一個女性的投票權組織。 雖然她對女權投入許多心力, 她和運動的白人領袖發生衝突。 在華盛頓特區的一次 女性投票權遊行中, 主辦人試圖緩解南方的偏執, 因而將黑人女性排在後方, 她沒有理會這項規則, 在隊伍前方和白人女性一起遊行。
She also chafed with other civil rights leaders, who saw her as a dangerous radical. She insisted on airing, in full detail, the atrocities taking place in the South, while others thought doing so would be counterproductive to negotiations with white politicians. Although she participated in the founding of the NAACP, she was soon sidelined from the organization.
她也和其他民權運動領袖有磨擦, 他們認為她是危險的激進分子。 她堅持要轉播南方殘暴的所有細節, 其他人則認為這麼做 可能會有反效果, 更難和白人政客談判。 雖然她參與了美國全國 有色人種協進會的成立, 但很快她就被該組織排擠。
Wells’ unwillingness to compromise any aspect of her vision of justice shined a light on the weak points of the various rights movements, and ultimately made them stronger— but also made it difficult for her to find a place within them. She was ahead of her time, waging a tireless struggle for equality and justice decades before many had even begun to imagine it possible.
威爾斯不願意將她的正義遠景 在任何面向上做妥協, 協助了許多民權運動的弱點, 最終,讓它們變得更強壯—— 但也讓她更難在這些 運動中找到容身之處。 她走在那個時代的最前面, 為平等和正義不懈地努力著, 在許多人認為有可能這麼做 之前的數十年她就已經在做了。