1905

W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter founded the Niagara Movement at a meeting near Niagara Falls, Canada (denied accommodations in the US), explicitly rejecting Booker T. Washington's accommodationist platform of accepting segregation and limiting Black ambitions to vocational training. The Movement demanded immediate civil and political rights, unrestricted voting, and equal treatment before the law. Though short-lived (1905-1910), it directly preceded the NAACP and established the ideological framework of full-rights civil rights advocacy.

W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter founded the Niagara Movement near Niagara Falls, explicitly rejecting Washington's accommodationist platform. The Movement demanded immediate civil and political rights, unrestricted voting, and equal treatment. Though short-lived (1905-1910), it directly preceded the NAACP and established the ideological framework of full-rights civil rights advocacy.

The Niagara Movement's Declaration of Principles, drafted by W.E.B. Du Bois at their first meeting in 1905, demanded universal suffrage, civil liberty, economic opportunity, education, and the end of caste distinctions. 'We will not be satisfied to take one jot or tittle less than our full manhood rights. We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American — political, civil, and social.' The Declaration directly challenged Booker T. Washington's philosophy and provided ideological grounding for the NAACP's program.

The Niagara Movement's Declaration of Principles, drafted by W.E.B. Du Bois, demanded universal suffrage, civil liberty, economic opportunity, education, and the end of caste distinctions: 'We will not be satisfied to take one jot or tittle less than our full manhood rights.' The Declaration directly challenged Washington's philosophy and provided ideological grounding for the NAACP's program.

Du Bois and others launch a militant demand for full civil rights, a forerunner of the NAACP.