Wells’ anti-lynching work began in 1892 while she was living in Memphis and editing Free Speech, a newspaper where she discussed controversial issues of local and national significance, even when harshly criticizing the African American and white communities. It was in this same year that racial tensions would climax over competition between an established white grocery store and the opening, across the street, of the African American–owned People’s Grocery Company in the African American section of town. The success of the People’s Grocery Company embittered a number of white residents who viewed its success as a threat to the racial power dynamics in Memphis. At the beginning of March, a group of whites, including law enforcement, pretended they were looking for criminals harbored at the People’s Grocery and violently attacked the store. Aware of the threat, the People’s Grocery had armed men who were keeping watch and they fired on the white men, wounding three and killing none. Surprised and frightened that African Americans had defended themselves, whites concocted a false story purporting law enforcement officers had been fired upon by blacks while carrying out their regular duties. As a result, over 100 African American men in Memphis were dragged from their homes and thrown into jail. On March 9, a mob of 75 white men disguised with black masks dragged three of Wells’s closest friends, who were the owners of the People’s Grocery Company, from jail and savagely lynched them in a railroad yard.
The lynchings of her three friends marked a transformative moment in Wells’s life. The lynchings created numerous unanswered questions for Wells since they were contrary to the accepted belief that lynchings were punishment for rape. But her three friends were not charged with that crime. If lynchings were not always the response to rape, what other reasons existed for lynching African Americans? Wells’s inquiry led her to conclude that concerns about economic competition between the white grocer and her friends’ grocery store were the real reason behind the brutal lynching. After the lynching, Wells conveys their economic underpinnings:
The mob took possession of the People’s Grocery Company, helping themselves to food and drink, and destroyed what they could not eat or steal. The creditors had the place closed and a few days later what remained of the stock was sold at an auction. Thus, with the aid of the city and county authorities and the daily papers, that white grocer had indeed put an end to this rival Negro grocer as well as to his business.
For Wells, lynching was intricately linked to the protection of white economic power. It was an unofficial tool of the state to thwart black economic advancement.