Niagara Movement
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The Niagara Movement was founded in 1905 by a group of 32 African-Americans, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, John Hope, and William Monroe Trotter. They called for full civil liberties, an end to racial discrimination, and recognition of human brotherhood. Buffalo residents William and Mary B. Talbert helped DuBois and Trotter locate a suitable venue for the inaugural meeting, which took place in Fort Erie, Ontario, from July 11 until July 14, 1905. They met on the Canadian side of the Niagara River because they were refused a hotel on the New York side and Du Bois specifically desired a resort-like setting.
The movement renounced Booker T. Washington's accommodation policies set forth in his Atlanta Compromise speech, delivered in 1895.
Their second meeting — the first to be held on U.S. soil — took place at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the site of John Brown's raid. The three-day gathering, starting on August 15, 1906 at the campus of Storer College (now part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park), discussed how to secure civil rights for African Americans and was later described by Du Bois as "one of the greatest meetings that American Negroes ever held." Attendees walked from Storer College to the nearby Murphy Family farm, site of the historic fort where John Brown's quest to free four million enslaved African Americans reached its bloody climax.
The Niagara Movement eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909.
