Niagara Movement

The Niagara Movement (NM) was a civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group of activists—many of whom were among the vanguard of African-American lawyers in the United States—led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. The Niagara Movement was organized to oppose racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Its members felt the policy of accommodation and conciliation, without voting rights, promoted by Booker T. Washington, was "unmanly." It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and took Niagara Falls as its symbol. The group did not meet in Niagara Falls, New York, but planned its first conference for nearby Buffalo during the week of July 9, 1905. To avoid a possible racist protest, Du Bois instead hired a small hotel across the border in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. The Niagara Movement was the immediate predecessor of the NAACP.