BGuthrie Photos: WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Exhibit: Storer College & Niagara Movement

WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Exhibit: Storer College & Niagara Movement:

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[1] HARSNM_120408_01.JPG	[2] HARSNM_120408_06.JPG	[3] HARSNM_120408_12.JPG	[4] HARSNM_120408_15.JPG	[5] HARSNM_120408_18.JPG
[6] HARSNM_120408_26.JPG	[7] HARSNM_120408_31.JPG	[8] HARSNM_120408_37.JPG	[9] HARSNM_120408_42.JPG	[10] HARSNM_120408_48.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. HARSNM_120408_01.JPG: "... one of the Greatest Meetings that American Negroes ever held." -- WEB Du Bois, 1906 Harpers Ferry
2. HARSNM_120408_06.JPG: "... the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression." -- From John Brown by WEB Du Bois, 1909
3. HARSNM_120408_12.JPG: What Attracted the Niagara Movement to Harpers Ferry? Harpers Ferry seems to have been a perfect site for the 1906 meeting of the Niagara Movement. John Brown's 1859 raid to end slavery converted this town into holy ground for African Americans. Storer College provided the necessary facilities for a professional meeting and stood as testament for hope and freedom. Finally, the area's natural beauty and its growing reputation as a tourist destination completed the package. Niagara member Max Barber wrote, "A more suitable place for the Second Annual Meeting of the Niagara Movement than Harpers Ferry would have been hard to find."
4. HARSNM_120408_15.JPG: Curtis Freewill Baptist Church was the spiritual heart of the Storer College campus. Here, the Niagara Movement members worshipped in August of 1906.
5. HARSNM_120408_18.JPG: What was the Niagara Movement? From 1905 to 1910, a small group of motivated and outspoken individuals engaged in a national struggle for racial equality. This group was known as the Niagara Movement, and in the first modern platform for civil rights they called for equal justice under the law. At that time, many state governments prevented their black citizens from voting in any election. Lynchings had become commonplace in the southern states and were spreading northward. Most African Americans did not enjoy the freedom of speech or a quality public education. The struggle for equality was not a fair fight and the call for justice was not heard. The Niagara Movement demanded change.
6. HARSNM_120408_26.JPG: The Call for Justice: Niagara Begins: In June 1905 the sociologist, educator, and author WEB Du Bois transcended his academic pursuits and became a man of action. Du Bois drafted a national call "for organized determination and aggressive action on the part of men who believe in Negro freedom and growth." Refused hotel space in Buffalo, New York, Du Bois hired a little hotel on the Canadian side of the Niagara River at Fort Erie and waited for the response to his call. "If sufficient men had not come to pay for the hotel, I should certainly have been in bankruptcy and perhaps in jail; but as a matter of fact, twenty-nine men, representing fourteen states, came. The Niagara Movement was organized January 31, 1906. "... I was no natural leader of men. I could not slap people on the back and make friends of strangers. I could not easily break down an inherited reserve and a cold, biting, critical streak. Nevertheless, having put my hand to the plow I could not turn back." -- WEB Du Bois The objectives of the Niagara Movement in 1905: 1. Freedom of speech and criticism 2. An unfettered and unsubsidized press. 3. Manhood suffrage. 4. The abolition of all caste distinctions based simply on race and color 5.The recognition of the principle of human brotherhood as a practical present creed 6. The recognition of the highest and best human training as the monopoly of not class or race 7. A belief in the dignity of labor 8. United effort to realize these ideals under wise and courageous leadership Seal of the Niagara Movement: The monument to Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black unit recruited in the North during the Civil War, symbolizes a march toward black empowerment. The statue depicts a people fighting for their rights, and inspired the leaders [of] the Niagara Movement to adopt is [sic] as their official seal. Notice the broken chains under the border added by the Niagara Movement.
7. HARSNM_120408_37.JPG: For All Americans: The 1906 Meeting at Harpers Ferry: The Niagara Movement's first meeting on American soil and their first public meeting convened on the campus of Storer College in Harpers Ferry on August 16, 1906. WEB Du Bois reminisced about this historic conference in his Autobiography: ".... instead of meeting in secret, we met openly... and had in significance if not in numbers one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held... and we talked some of the plainest English that had been given voice to by black men in America." Mary White Ovington, future co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) covered the Harpers Ferry conference for the New York Evening Post in 1906. She was one of the few white, mainstream press reporters to write about the Niagara Movement. At her own suggestion, WEB Du Bois had invited Ovington to come to Harpers Ferry. She recorded the following impression of the participants. "Their power and intellectual ability is manifest on hearing or talking with them." On the last night of the 1906 conference, the Niagara Movement's "Address to the Country" was read aloud to the delegates. This five-point resolution written by Du Bois was among the most eloquent and forceful declarations produced at any of the Niagara meetings. 1. We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth and forever. 2. We want discrimination in public accommodation to cease. Separation... is un-American, undemocratic and silly. 3. We claim the right of freemen to walk, talk and be with them who wish to be with us. 4. We want the laws enforced... against white as well as black. 5. We want our children educated... either the U.S. will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the U.S. The 1906 meeting dealt with the full spectrum of civil rights concerns, both social and political. And it was here that the female members of Niagara spoke out and won the right to attend the private committee meetings. At the next year's conference in Boston, the women of Niagara were full-fledged participants.
8. HARSNM_120408_42.JPG: We Must Prevail: The Niagara Movement after Harpers Ferry: Boston's Faneuil Hall was the site of the Niagara Movement's 1907 meeting. The Niagara Movement's annual "Address to the Country" in 1907 proclaimed, "We are Americans. We believe in this land. We cannot silent see if false to its great ideals. We call for repentance, regeneration, reconsecration to the ideals of Washington, Jefferson..." A group photo from the third Niagara Movement meeting, held in Boston in 1907. This gathering was the largest of all, about 800 people, and the first to admit women as equal members. The 1908 Niagara Movement conference was held at Oberlin, Ohio. WEB Du Bois' comments to the Niagara membership in 1908 summarized the struggle before them. "Today the avenues of advancement in the army, navy, and civil service, and even in business and professional life, are continually closed to black applicants of proven fitness, simply on the bald excuse of race and color." Sea Isle City, New Jersey, hosted the fifth and final meeting of the Niagara Movement in 1909. In 1909, the Niagara Movement produced its last annual "Address to the Country." The challenging and inspirational tone of the "Address" gave no clue that the members of Niagara had met for the last time. "On us rests to no little degree the burden of the cause of individual Freedom, Human Brotherhood, and Universal Peace in a day when America is forgetting her promise and destiny... The causes of God cannot be lost." From 1905 to 1909, the Niagara Movement brought together some of the most educated and outspoken African Americans in the United States. This small group of individuals not only challenged the black and white leaders of their day, but also demanded progress in both the current state and future prospects of race relations. But the Niagara Movement could not continue. "They are a fine set of fellows if we can only keep them together," wrote WEB Du Bois. Booker T Washington's organized opposition to Niagara diminished the Movement's effectiveness and discouraged the necessary support of white philanthropists. Niagara was also hampered by personality conflicts within the group's membership and Du Bois' admitted inexperience with leading such an organization. In 1911, Du Bois sent a letter to his colleagues urging them to join the new multiracial National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Niagara Movement cleared the path for the NAACP, and the new organization's founders considered the support of the Niagara members, and WEB Du Bois in particular, to be essential to their success. Little had changed in the few short years that the Niagara Movement existed. The number of people lynched in 1910 reached 92. Most black people still found the freedom of speech restricted, the right to vote elusive, and a decent education denied. But the modern era of civil rights had begun, and there would be no turning back. The call to action from the 1907 Niagara Movement "Address" continued. "Help us, brothers, for the victory which lingers, must and shall prevail."
9. HARSNM_120408_48.JPG: Clash of the Titans: Du Bois versus Washington: Booker T. Washington (1856-1915): Booker T. Washington was the most prominent black man in America at the dawn of the twentieth century. His well-known autobiography, Up From Slavery, told the story of a young slave rising to a nationally recognized position of respect and influence through hard work and self-reliance. At the age of 25, Washington became the leader of the Tuskegee Institute, the best-known historically black college in the United States. Washington believed that prosperity for blacks depended on economic self-sufficiency and accommodation to social segregation. He hoped that by giving up on demands for social equality in the South, African Americans would be allowed to participate in economic growth. Most white leaders and many black people supported Washington's position. WEB Du Bois (1868-1963): William Edward Burghardt Du Bois broke new ground on many frontiers in his remarkable and controversial life. Du Bois earned the first Harvard doctorate awarded to an African American. During a prolific career of writing and publication, including sixteen thought-provoking books on sociology, history, politics, and race relations, Du Bois became the principal architect of the civil rights movement in the United States. He perceptively said, "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." In 1905, Du Bois fought for civil rights with an elite group of African Americans known as the Niagara Movement. The formation of this group marked the beginning of Du Bois' public assault on racial discrimination. He was also among the first to grasp the international implications of the fight for racial justice. Although Du Bois contributed on a global scale to the advancement of civil rights, he was not universally applauded. His uncompromising dedication to principle resulted in a mix of devotion and resentment. The Clash... WEB Du Bois disagreed strongly with Booker T. Washington's position on civil rights. He felt that Washington's so-called "accommodationist policies" undermined the quest for equality. Du Bois organized the Niagara Movement to demand equal enforcement of the law for all races and active political involvement at all levels of society. One of the reasons why the Niagara Movement is not well known today is that Washington used his power and influence to stifle press coverage. Aside from one or two exceptions, only a handful of newspapers owned by members of Niagara reported on the Movement.
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