This was wholly political, its purpose being to suppress the colored vote by intimidation and murder. Just as the lynch-law regime came to a close in the West, a new mob movement started in the South. Later, however, as law courts and authorized judiciary extended into the far West, lynch law rapidly abated, and its white victims became few and far between. During the few years preceding this period and while frontier law existed, the executions showed a majority of white victims.
Proof that lynching follows the color line is to be found in the statistics which have been kept for the past twenty-five years. Third, it is a national crime and requires a national remedy. Second, crimes against women is the excuse, not the cause. It presents three salient facts: First, lynching is color-line murder. The lynching record for a quarter of a century merits the thoughtful study of the American people. The following speech was delivered by Wells at the National Negro Conference, the forerunner to the NAACP, in New York City on May 31-June 1, 1909. In 1909, however, she gained a powerful ally in the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). From the early 1890s she labored mostly alone in her effort to raise the nation’s awareness and indignation about these usually unpunished murders.
Wells was the most prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the United States.