Editing Niagara Movement (section)

==Background==
{{main|Jim Crow laws|Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|Atlanta Compromise}}
During the [[Reconstruction Era]] that followed the [[American Civil War]], African Americans had an unprecedented level of civil freedom and civic participation. In the South, for the first time the former slaves could vote, hold public office, and contract for their labor. With the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s, their freedoms began to narrow. From 1890 to 1908, all the Southern states ratified new constitutions or laws that [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]] and significantly restricted their political and civil rights.<ref>{{cite book|last=Klarman|first=Michael|title=From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|location=New York|isbn=9780195351675|oclc=159922058 | page = 10}}</ref> After Democrats regained control of state legislatures they passed laws imposing legal [[racial segregation]] in public facilities. These policies were entrenched after the [[United States Supreme Court]] in 1896 ruled in ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' that laws requiring "[[separate but equal]]" facilities were constitutional. The separate facilities for African Americans were often shabby, or they did not exist at all. 

[[Image:WMTrotter1915.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[William Monroe Trotter]], 1915 photomechanical print]]
The most prominent African-American spokesman during the 1890s was [[Booker T. Washington]], leader of [[Alabama]]'s [[Tuskegee Institute]]. In an 1895 speech in [[Atlanta, Georgia]], Washington discussed what became known as the [[Atlanta Compromise]]. He believed that Southern African-Americans should not agitate for political rights (such as exercising the right to vote or having [[Equal Protection Clause|equal treatment]] under the law) as long as they were provided economic opportunities and basic rights of [[due process]]. He believed they needed to focus on education and work, to raise their race.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Nikki |editor2-last=Stentiford | editor2-first = Barry |title=The Jim Crow Encyclopedia|url=https://archive.org/details/jimcrowencyclope00brow |url-access=limited |publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2008|location=Westport, Connecticut|isbn=9780313341823|oclc=369409006 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/jimcrowencyclope00brow/page/n84 55]–56}}</ref> Washington politically dominated the [[National Afro-American Council]], the first nationwide African-American civil rights organization.<ref>Fox, pp. 46–48.</ref>

By the turn of the 20th century, other activists within the African-American community began demanding a challenge to racist government policies and higher goals for their people than those advocated by Washington. They believed that Washington was "accommodationist". Opponents included Northerner [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], then a professor at [[Atlanta University]], and [[William Monroe Trotter]], a Boston activist who in 1901 founded the ''[[Boston Guardian]]'' newspaper as a platform for radical activism.<ref>Fox, pp. 29–30.</ref><ref>Lewis, pp. 179–182.</ref> In 1902 and 1903 groups of activists sought to gain a larger voice in the debate at the conventions of the National Afro-American Council, but they were marginalized because the conventions were dominated by Washington supporters (also known as Bookerites).<ref>Fox, pp. 38–40.</ref> Trotter in July 1903 orchestrated a confrontation with [[Booker T. Washington|Washington]] in [[Boston]], a stronghold of activism, that resulted in a minor melee and the arrest of Trotter and others; the event garnered national headlines.<ref>Fox, pp. 49–58.</ref>

In January 1904, Washington, with funding assistance from white philanthropist [[Andrew Carnegie]], organized a meeting in New York to unite African American and civil rights spokesmen. Trotter was not invited, but Du Bois and a few other activists were. Du Bois was sympathetic to the activist cause and suspicious of Washington's motives; he noted that the number of activists invited was small relative to the number of Bookerites. The meeting laid the foundation for a committee to include both Washington and Du Bois, but it quickly fractured. Du Bois resigned in July 1905.<ref>Lewis, pp. 208–211.</ref> By this time, both Du Bois and Trotter recognized the need for a well-organized anti-Washington activist group.