Her investigative reporting led her to the scenes of recent lynchings. Through diligent fact-gathering, Wells established an unprecedented analysis of the economic and institutional nature of racial violence and its dependence on racist and sexist ideologies and gender subordination. Traveling alone, she launched a vigorous international crusade against lynching terror in the United States, speaking during the period from 1892 to 1895 to groups of men and women, white and black, in the United States, England, and Scotland.
Wells's activity had a measurable impact on the national action against racial violence and for civil rights. Always an outspoken advocate for black political independence, physical self-defense, and economic retaliation, she combined a doctrine of economic self-sufficiency with an understanding of the economic leverage African Americans must bring to bear in demanding their due. She believed national organizations must demand influence and accountability from state and federal governments. Consequently Wells was active in the National Colored Press Association and the Afro-American League. The antilynching cause, and the attacks against her character that her lectures aroused, helped galvanize the black women's club movement at a national level. She participated in the founding of organizations such as the National Association of Colored Women and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
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