Sublime

Wells was best known as a journalist for exposing the lies behind the justification for lynching. Negroes charged with recklessly eyeballing a White woman, or worse, were often people who had found prosperity and respect despite the constraints of Jim Crow. The lynchings put them back in their place. Wells nearly met a similar fate, but escaped as

“A man like this?” I said softly. “What’re you? What’re you?”

“More than three hundred years ago your forefathers were taken from the western coast of Africa as slaves. The people who dealt in the slave traffic were Christians. One of your famous Christian hymn writers, Sir John Newton, made his money from the sale of slaves to the New World. He is the man who wrote ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds’ and