Existing comment:
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. |