Letter from Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) to Rev. R.A. Armstrong, written on behalf of Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)

Shortly after the publication of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), Ida B. Wells toured the United States and Great Britain to promote the anti-lynching cause. Letters of introduction and support, like this one written by the then-elder statesman Frederick Douglass to the Reverend R.A. Armstrong in England, praised Wells’s character and lent further strength to her efforts. After noting that he regards Wells as “a brave and truthful woman,” Douglass underscores one of her rhetorical strategies: “The outraged ha­­ve a right to cry and even scream their wrongs into the ears of their fellow men whenever and wherever there is a chance of awakening the conscience or the self-respect of the wrongdoer.”