Unidentified photographer
1905
Niagara Movement Founders

Photograph
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, University Libraries, Special Collections
Courtesy of the W.E.B Du Bois Library, 009.00.00, Digital ID # MS0312-0394
 
Niagara Movement Founders, 1905. Top row (left to right): H. A. Thompson, Alonzo F. Herndon, John Hope, James R. L. Diggs (?). Second row (left to right): Frederick McGhee, Norris B. Herndon (boy), J. Max Barber, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert Bonner. Bottom row (left to right): Henry L. Bailey, Clement G. Morgan, W. H. H. Hart, B. S. Smith. Reproduction.
 
Context provided by the Library of Congress
On July 11, 1905, W.E.B Dubois and William Monroe Trotter convened a conference of black leaders to renounce Booker T. Washington's accommodationism. They met at Niagara Falls, in Ontario, Canada, because hotels on the U.S. side of the falls barred blacks. The 29 men in attendance set forth a platform that demanded freedom of speech and criticism; a free press; manhood suffrage; abolition of all caste distinctions based on race or color; recognition of the principle of human brotherhood; belief in the dignity of labor; and a united effort to realize these ideals under wise and courageous leadership. The organization they formed, the Niagara Movement, met annually until 1910. It was one of the organizations that paved the way for the formation of the NAACP.
 
I'm indebted to Robert Bogdan for bringing this photograph to my attention (12 July 2018)
 
LL/84172