In celebration of the birth date of our journalistic inspiration, Ida B. Wells — 164 years ago — we’re sharing an article she wrote under the pen name, Iola. According to “The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader,” by the time she wrote this piece, Wells was so prolific and well-known as a Black female journalist that she was called “Iola, the Princess of the Press.”
“Our Women” defends Black womanhood and was published in The Memphis News-Scimitar.
Our Women
Among the many things that have transpired to dishearten the Negroes in their effort to attain a level in the status of civilized races, has been the wholesale contemptuous defamation of their women.
Unmindful of the fact that our enslavement with all the evils attendant theron, was involuntary and that enforced poverty ignorance and immorality was our only dower at its close, there are writers who have nothing to give the world in their disquisitions on the Negroes, save a rehearsal of their worthlessness, immorality, etc.
While all these accusations, allowed as we usually are, no opportunity to refute them, are hurtful to and resented by us, none sting so deeply and keenly as the taunt of immorality; the jest and sneer with which our women are spoken of, and the utter incapacity or refusal to believe there are among us mothers, wives and maidens who have attained a true, noble, and refining womanhood. There are many such all over this Southland of ours, and in our own city they abound. It is this class who, learning of the eloquent plea in defense of, and the glowing tribute paid Negro womanhood, by G.P.M. Turner in the speech he delivered in the Bewden case**, return him their heartfelt thanks and assure them that their gratitude and appreciation of him as a gentleman, a lawyer and a far seeing economist is inexpressible. Our race is no exception to the rest of humanity, in its susceptibility to weakness, nor is it any consolation for us to know that the nobility of England and the aristocratic circles of our own country furnish parallel examples of immorality. We only wish to be given the same credit for our virtues that others receive, and once the idea gains ground that worth is respected, from whatever source it may originate, a great incentive to good morals will have been given. For what you have done in that respect accept the sincere thanks of the virtuous colored women of this city.
*An afternoon daily newspaper in Memphis that was housed in what is now the Hotel Napoleon on Madison Avenue.
** Turner, a white attorney and later, attorney general of the criminal court in Memphis, defended a man accused of murdering his employer’s brother-in-law. The case stemmed from an illicit affair. He was also known, in the post-Reconstruction era, for recognizing legal ability with racial prejudice. He appointed a Black man as his assistant attorney general. That’s what you call an ally!
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