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Difficulty: MediumRacial Terror and the Anti-Lynching Movement

Read the following passage from Ida B. Wells-Barnett's 1895 work *A Red Record*:

"Under the slave regime the Negro was an article of property... and those who owned him had a pecuniary interest in his life... With the end of the war, the Negro was no longer property and his life was no longer of monetary value. When he became a citizen and a voter, he was then a political factor who must be reckoned with, and a competitor in the labor market."

Based on the passage, which of the following best describes Wells-Barnett's analysis of why lynching escalated after the Civil War?

  1. A
    Lynching was a necessary defensive response by Southern communities to control rising rates of crime and lawlessness among newly freed Black citizens.
  2. B
    Racial violence was used to enforce sharecropping arrangements, which served as mutually beneficial and equitable economic contracts between white landowners and Black farmers.
  3. With emancipation, Black Americans lost the protective status of being valuable financial property and became political and economic competitors to white dominance.Answer
  4. D
    Lynching escalated as a Northern pull factor, designed by Southern white landowners to encourage Black workers to migrate to Northern industrial cities.

Answer

With emancipation, Black Americans lost the protective status of being valuable financial property and became political and economic competitors to white dominance.
The correct option correctly identifies Ida B. Wells-Barnett's argument that slavery provided a financial incentive for white owners to preserve Black lives as property. Once emancipated, Black Americans became economic and political competitors, and without that property value, they faced unchecked racial terror.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the passage to identify how Ida B. Wells-Barnett contrasts the status of Black Americans before and after emancipation.
Under slavery, owners had a 'pecuniary interest' in Black lives as property. After emancipation, Black people lost this monetary value and became political factors and competitors in the labor market.
This contrast forms the core of her argument explaining the rise of racial terror.
2
Evaluate the options to find which one accurately represents this shift and its relationship to post-war violence.
The statement regarding the loss of property status and the transition to political and economic competition matches the passage directly.
It explains that the removal of financial incentives to protect Black lives, combined with white resentment of new competition, drove the escalation of lynching.

Key Concept

Ida B. Wells-Barnett's analysis of the economic and political motivations behind racial terror and lynching.
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Topics

Racial Terror and the Anti-Lynching Movement

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