Women's Christian Temperance Union as an early Feminist movement

[JustAnotherGen]

7. Civil Rights for who? All women? Or just the gilded lillies?

Wells' anti-lynching campaign brought the two to England concurrently. As Wells described the horrors of American lynchings, British liberals were incredulous that White women such as Willard–who had been heralded in the English press as the "Uncrowned Queen of American Democracy"–would turn a blind eye to such violence. Wells correctly accused Willard of being silent on the issue of lynchings, and of making racial comments which would add fuel to the fire of mob violence.[22] To support her assertion, Wells referred to an interview Willard had conducted during a tour of the South in which Willard had blamed Blacks for the defeat of temperance legislation there and had cast aspersions on the race. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the grog shop is its center of power... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities."[22]

In response, Willard and her powerful hostess and counterpart, Lady Somerset, attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and Black friends, no Black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

Keep in mind - one of the ways Willard brought Southern women into the fold was by making sure the black members marched at the back of the parade. And she had nothing to say about white men raping black women - as she often played to the 'Jezebel' stereotype of black women that we still see today . . . i.e. - They (black women) by birth are sexual miscreants.