Résumé
Résumé de Le Dossier rouge
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love American history, journalism and civil rights, and want a primary source rather than a retelling. It is also for anyone curious how evidence can be used as a weapon.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Red Record is a short book of facts about a crime that many Americans in 1895 preferred not to name. Ida B. Wells, a Black journalist born into slavery, wrote it in Chicago after she had been driven out of Memphis for her reporting. It gathers the numbers, the cases and the excuses behind lynching in the United States, and it asks the reader to look at them plainly.
Wells wrote it after speaking to audiences in Britain, where she hoped to stir a public opinion that American leaders could not ignore. You get a record built largely from white newspapers and white officials, chosen so that no one could say she had made it up. You also get a sharp argument about why the story of the rape charge was told so often, and what ordinary people could do in answer. To see why she wrote it, begin with the woman and the event that changed her life.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A witness turns her pen into evidenceFree
- 2The numbers come from white newspapers
- 3The rape charge was an excuse, not a cause
- 4Individual cases show what mob rule means
- 5The press and the churches share the blame
- 6What can be done: speak, leave, refuse, vote
Point clé 1 sur 6
A witness turns her pen into evidence
Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862, into slavery. She grew up to be a teacher and then a newspaper writer in Memphis, Tennessee, where she became part owner of a paper called Free Speech. She wrote about schools, about railway cars that treated Black passengers unfairly, and about the daily limits placed on Black life in the South.
In March 1892 her friend Thomas Moss was taken from a Memphis jail and killed by a mob, along with two other men, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart. They ran a grocery store that competed with a white-owned shop nearby. The men had been arrested after a fight outside their store, and they were killed before any court could hear their case. The event shook Wells deeply, and it set her on a new course.
She began to look for the facts behind lynching across the country. She had always heard the usual explanation, that Black men were killed to protect white women. Her friend's death made her doubt that story, since Moss had been accused of nothing of the kind. She decided to test the story against the record.
The Red Record is the fruit of that decision. It follows her earlier pamphlet, Southern Horrors, from 1892, but it is broader and better documented. In it Wells writes as a reporter who has gone to the sources, and she asks readers to judge the case by the evidence she puts in front of them.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 35,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 20 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about Le Dossier rouge
What is The Red Record about?
It is Ida B. Wells's 1895 account of lynching in the United States. It presents statistics, individual cases and an argument against the excuses used to defend mob killings, and it ends with proposals for action.
Is The Red Record a true story?
Yes. It is nonfiction, published in 1895. Wells relied on newspaper reports, especially the Chicago Tribune's yearly lynching tables, along with letters and her own inquiries to document real cases.
Why did Ida B. Wells write The Red Record?
She began investigating lynching after the 1892 killing of her friend Thomas Moss in Memphis. She wrote the book after lecturing in Britain, hoping to win public support for justice and fair trials.
How is The Red Record different from Southern Horrors?
Southern Horrors, from 1892, was her first pamphlet on the subject. The Red Record is longer and better documented, with fuller statistics, more case studies and a wider discussion of the press and possible remedies.
Is The Red Record hard to read?
The language is clear. The tables and arguments are easy to follow.