The Niagara Movement
Jess Wilson Intro to Comp P3 Miss Wagner October 8, 2012
The Niagara Movement The Niagara Movement was an organization that wanted to offer the black community a leader other than Booker T. Washington. The man that called the original meeting together in 1905, W.E.B Du Bois, a professor at Atlanta University, was tired of Washington accommodating everything that the whites did. Du Bois called out to 59 intelligent African-American men, but only 29 of those agreed to meet with him. The meeting was originally going to be held on the American side of Niagara falls, but the hotel managers at the falls would not give them rooms because they were black. The meeting was held on the Canadian side of the falls where they were welcomed and could get hotel rooms without any problems. The Niagara Movement wanted to do away with Washington’s accommodation policies. They wanted rights for the black community, like the right to vote, to not be segregated or discriminated in public, and to have all of the same rights that the white people had. Even though the movement had some small victories, it suffered from the lack of funds, a permanent place of meeting, and a permanent staff. The movement never gained the support it needed to be successful. Washington ensured that the movement got little to no publicity in the black press. White liberals founded the NAACP in 1909, one year after the Springfield Race Riot in Illinois. The Niagara Movement was broken up in 1911.
The Niagara Movement The Niagara Movement was an organization that wanted to offer the black community a leader other than Booker T. Washington. The man that called the original meeting together in 1905, W.E.B Du Bois, a professor at Atlanta University, was tired of Washington accommodating everything that the whites did. Du Bois called out to 59 intelligent African-American men, but only 29 of those agreed to meet with him. The meeting was originally going to be held on the American side of Niagara falls, but the hotel managers at the falls would not give them rooms because they were black. The meeting was held on the Canadian side of the falls where they were welcomed and could get hotel rooms without any problems. The Niagara Movement wanted to do away with Washington’s accommodation policies. They wanted rights for the black community, like the right to vote, to not be segregated or discriminated in public, and to have all of the same rights that the white people had. Even though the movement had some small victories, it suffered from the lack of funds, a permanent place of meeting, and a permanent staff. The movement never gained the support it needed to be successful. Washington ensured that the movement got little to no publicity in the black press. White liberals founded the NAACP in 1909, one year after the Springfield Race Riot in Illinois. The Niagara Movement was broken up in 1911.