Ida B Wells Red Record Summary

Lynching, for many, served as a purpose to preserve or reclaim white sovereignty. After the Civil War blacks became free, the fear of Negro supremacy ascended. The once sub humans had gained the right to vote, to be equivalent to the white man, and to obtain citizenship. Foremost, whites felt susceptible by a rise in black prominence and believed that lynching would terrorize blacks into remaining subservient while allowing whites to regain their sense of status (Lynching). Even though lynching was morally incorrect, in the early 1800s when lynching in fact became a collective justice, nearly five thousand people were lynched most of them being black men, black women, and sometimes even children. Although it was more common for the lynching …show more content…
All the while, writers from different times compiled compositions of their own. In determinations to expose the truth, “A Red Record”, by Ida B. Wells offered facts and statistics about the repulsion of lynching in America. Some years later, after Ida B. Wells, in 1937, Abel Meerool’s poem, “Strange Fruit”, later recorded as a song by Billie Holiday in 1939, focused on the purpose and resolution of racial violence. Following the Jim Crow eras and reconstruction eras, Alice Walker’s brief prevailing short story “The Flower’s” brought to light how the history of lynching remained wounding and injuring. In a sense “A Red Record”, “Strange Fruit”, and “The Flowers” all discuss lynching in a different dynamic and aspect. “Strange Fruit” was by far the most effective compilation in expressing to the audience of how horrendous justification through lynching was. The poem/song transformed white audiences, forcing them both to confront the grim realities of racism in America in the pre-Civil Rights Era (Shmoop Editorial …show more content…
The rhythmic scheme to the poem gives the lyrics a pleasantly smooth flow even though the actual meaning is more disturbing. The poem is descriptive enough that the reader can picture the sceneries in their mind without actually being there in person. The credibility of “Strange Fruit” is prominent because it is not statistical, is not written after the fact, but it was based on eye witness testimony with documentations of pictures, newspapers, and advertisements. The evidence is inevitable. The whole poem showed up what injustice and intolerance caused in time racism was at one of its worst highs and Meeropol wanted people to understand how huge the sorrows and plight of the Afro Americans were (Anja’s Blog). Singing says more than just reading can express because the song gave vocal emphasis to the poem. The white audience was stunned when the song was first performed and it gave a shove to the public to open their eyes to see the truth behind the reality of white brutality. Again, in regards to “The Flowers” and “A Red Record”, “Strange Fruit” gave a more effective message about the true meaning and horrors in America through strong vocalization and