The Niagara Movement was a civil rights group organized by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter in 1905. After being denied admittance to hotels in Buffalo, New York, the group of twenty-nine business owners, teachers, and clergy who comprised the initial meeting gathered at Niagara Falls, Ontario (Canada) from which the group’s name derives.
The principles behind the Niagara Movement were largely in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of Accommodationism. Trotter, editor of the Boston Guardian, had publicly reprimanded Washington at a Boston, Massachusetts meeting in 1903. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois had also condemned Washington for his lowered expectations for African Americans. The Niagara Movement drafted a “Declaration of Principles,” part of which stated: “We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults.”
The Niagara Movement attempted to bring about legal change, addressing the issues of crime, economics, religion, health, and education. The movement stood apart from other black organizations at the time because of its powerful, unequivocal demand for equal rights. The Niagara Movement forcefully demanded equal economic and educational opportunity as well as the vote for black men and women. Members of the Niagara Movement sent a powerful message to the entire country through their condemnation of racial discrimination and their call for an end to segregation.
While the movement had grown to include to 170 members in 34 states by 1906, it also encountered difficulties. W.E.B. Du Bois supported the inclusion of women in the Niagara Movement, William Monroe Trotter did not. Trotter left the movement in 1908 to start his own group, the Negro-American Political League.
The Niagara Movement met annually until 1908. In that year a major race riot broke out in Springfield, Illinois. Eight blacks were killed and over 2,000 African Americans fled the city. Symbolically important because it was the first northern race riot in four decades and because it was in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, black and white activists, including members of the Niagara Movement, felt a new more powerful, interracial organization was now needed to combat racism. Out of this concern, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed. The Niagara Movement was considered the precursor to the NAACP and many of its members, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, were among the new organization’s founders.
- 🐻Link to all Hexbear comms https://hexbear.net/post/1403966
- 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube](https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies
- 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread https://hexbear.net/post/5423450
- ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread https://hexbear.net/post/5485455
- ✨ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread https://hexbear.net/post/5485694
- 👊 New Weekly Improvement thread https://hexbear.net/post/5481990
- 🧡 Disabled comm megathread https://hexbear.net/post/5419599
- ☕ Parenting Chat https://hexbear.net/post/5479053
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
I can't believe they used my research to develop weapons
You merely moved to the swamp, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the dry until I was already a man
