Niagara Movement Facts
Niagara Movement Facts
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Interesting Niagara Movement Facts: |
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Notable civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter were the group's two primary leaders and organizers. |
The premiere black American civil rights organization before the Niagara Movement was the National Afro-American Council. Although Du Bois was a member of the organization for two years, he disagreed with what he saw as Booker's conservative approach to race relations and his influence over the organization so he left to form the Niagara Movement. |
The "Declaration of Principles," which was essentially the group's mission statement, was written by Du Bois and Trotter |
The Declaration of Principles was quite radical for the era, as it called for suffrage of all black Americans, taxpayer funded education, and criminal justice reform. |
As much as Du Bois and the Niagara Movement opposed Booker T. Washington and his ideas, Washington and his supporters were equally opposed to the Niagara Movement. It is believed that Washington and his supporters conspired to suppress news of the Niagara Movement in the national African-American press. |
At the height of its short existence, the Niagara Movement had chapters in twenty-one states. |
The Niagara Movement began allowing women to join in 1906. Du Bois supported the idea from the beginning but Trotter had to be persuaded. |
The Niagara Movement dissolved due to politics. Du Bois supported Democrat candidate William Jennings Bryant in the 1908 presidential election, but the rank and file of the organization, like most black Americans at the time, supported Republican William Taft, who won the election. |
After the Niagara Movement, Du Bois became more involved with socialism and even communism, as he believed that those systems would be the only way to end discrimination. |
Du Bois was appointed as director of publication for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1911. He tried to get the remaining members of the Niagara Movement to join the NAACP. |
The Niagara Movement's final meeting was in 1909. |
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