Niagara Movement

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer explains that the Niagara Movement reflected the growing opposition, going back to the days of the Civil War and President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation which freed the slaves from their bondage, towards racial discrimination. The writer looks at the Niagara Movement under the leadership of W.E.B. Dubois and William Moore Trotter which was initiated in order to create and maintain aggressive political and social action with the aim of securing full citizenship rights for all black Americans. The writer points out that in a declaration of principles, W.E.B. Dubois and the Niagara Movement made it clear that black Americans must accept certain duties in order to achieve their God-given rights, duties which Dubois clearly realized were essential for all black Americans and which today's African-Americans, by a very large majority, continue to respect on a daily basis.

From the Paper:

"It has been pointed out by a number of historians and scholars that the selection of Harper's Ferry as the meeting place for the Niagara Movement in 1906 was a very radical decision which caused some concern among black intellectuals and forced many to distance themselves from the movement. One of these intellectuals was Booker T. Washington, then residing and teaching at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Washington at this time was widely considered as the quintessential distributor of philanthropic gifts and donations to black educational institutions throughout the United States and was prominent playing the role of appointing qualified blacks to jobs in the
federal government and acted as the strongest and most influential force in black America. Thus, his opposition to the Niagara Movement's decision to meet at Harper's Ferry paved the way for other prominent black Americans to choose not to be associated with the movement. Washington's opposition, in conjunction with a split between Dubois and Trotter, greatly weakened the movement to where within a few years it has lost much of its effectiveness and support."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bradley, Harold Whitman. The United States from 1865. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.
• Lewis, David Levering. W.E.B. Dubois: Biography of a Race--1868 to 1919. New York: Henry Holt, 1993.
• ---. W.E.B. Dubois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2000.
• Rudwick, Elliott M. W.E.B. Dubois: Propagandist of the Negro Protest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968.
• "The Niagara Movement." Internet. 2006. Retrieved from http://www.math.buffalo.edu/ ~Ohistory/hwny-niagara-movement.html.

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