State Historical Society of Iowa

"Lynching Black People Because They Are Black" by Frederick Douglass, April 1894

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Courtesy of Library of Congress, Douglass, Frederick, "Lynching Black People Because They Are Black," Christian Educator, April 1894

Description

This is an article written by Frederick Douglass and published in The Christian Educator in 1894. It focuses on the horrible treatment and violent abuse of African Americans in southern states after the end of legal enslavement in the United States and the Civil War.

Full Transcript of "Lynching Black People Because They Are Black"

Transcribed Excerpts from "Lynching Black People Because They Are Black"

Source Dependent Questions

  • Frederick Douglass claimed African Americans were "an aggrieved class, smarting under terrible wrongs, denied the exercise of the commonest rights of humanity, and regarded by the ruling class as outside of the Government, outside of the law, and outside of society." What evidence did he provide to defend each part of this claim?
  • According to excerpt 2, how did the "so-called better classes of the Southern people" enable and empower the "mob law and persecution" Douglass spoke of?
  • According to excerpt 3, what crime was regularly cited as justification for the lynching of African Americans? What did this reveal about White society's prevailing attitudes about African American men?
  • Douglass wrote, "I have waited patiently, but anxiously, to see the end of the epidemic of mob law and persecution now prevailing at the South. But the indications are not hopeful... It is no longer local, but national; no longer confined to the South, but has invaded the North." Why would African Americans migrate north when they couldn't be sure of the conditions they were entering into?

Citation Information

Douglass, Frederick, "Lynching Black People Because They Are Black," The Christian Educator, April 1894. Courtesy of Library of Congress Courtesy of Library of Congress