A lynch protest in Engand

ThingBy 1892, Ida had moved well beyond simply researching and writing editorials on lynching. She gathered her information into a pamphlet called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She financed the publication of the pamphlet all her own, and got Frederick Douglass--one of the most famous civil rights leaders in history--to write a forward. Douglass lauded Ida, whom he had grown to admire:

ThingLet me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South. There has been no word equal to it in convincing power. I have spoken, but my word is feeble in comparison. You give what you know and testify from actual knowledge...

ThingBrave woman! You have done your people and mine a service that can neither be weighed nor measured. If American conscience were only half alive...if American sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame, and indignation would rise to heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.

ThingIda also began giving lectures to a widely varied audience. In New York's Lyric Hall she testified before an audience of prominent individuals. She had originally planned to speak professionally, giving only the facts. However, something stirred within her as she spoke of the brutal deaths, and she broke down when she came to the story of her close friend, Thomas Moss, and his partners. The audience was moved by her heartfelt words. After a similar lecture in Philadelphia, Ida met up with an English woman named Catherine Impey, who had been horrified to hear of the killings Ida recounted. Impey implored that either Ida or Frederick Douglass go abroad to alert the world of lynching. Douglass himself urged Ida on, saying, "You go, my child. You are the one to go, for you have the story to tell."

ThingOn April 5, 1893, Ida departed for England. Her trip was a success even she could not have hoped for. She was on call for a lecture everywhere she went. The more Ida spoke, the more bold she became. She had been fearless with the written word and now she was fearless orally as well. Ida traveled relentlessly through Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh in Scotland as well as Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, and London, in England. Again and again she told her tale, once quoted as saying:

ThingThe pulpit and press of our own country remains silent on these continued outrages and the voice of my race thus tortured and outraged is stifled or ignored whenever it is lifted in America in demand for justice. It is to the religious and moral sentiment of Great Britain we now turn. These can arouse the public sentiment of America so Thingnecessary for the enforcement of the law.

ThingEngland received Ida's message with sympathy and concern, scorning the so-called "democracy" of the United States, a country which boasted of its rights and freedoms. Ida reveled in her support. She hoped that England and the rest of Europe's influence would be enough to make her country take a long hard second look into the internal crimes that were so afflicting a vast portion of its population.