By PATRICIA DONOVAN Contributing Editor
The Department of African American Studies will sponsor a celebration
of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Niagara Movement with an
event to be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
| Founding members
of the Niagara Movement: Top row, left to right: H. A. Thompson, New
York; Alonzo F. Herndon, Georgia; unidentified; unidentified. Second row,
left to right: Fred McGhee, Minnesota; unidentified boy; J. Max Barber,
Illinois; W.E.B. Du Bois, Atlanta; Robert Bonner, Massachusetts; Bottom
Row: left to right: Henry L. Baily, Washington, D.C.; Clement G. Morgan,
Massachusetts; W.H.H. Hart, Washington, D.C.; and B.S. Smith,
Kansas.
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Most Buffalonians have no idea that the influential National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is rooted in
the work of pioneering civic, religious, education and business leaders
of Buffalo's African-American community. Those leaders set the
stage for the founding of the Niagara Movement, which blazed the trail
for civil justice for African Americans in the 20th century. The
celebration will take place at 521 Michigan St., site of the home of
Mary Barnett Talbot (1866-1923), a nationally distinguished figure in
the movement for social justice for African Americans and women, and
founding member of the both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP.
During the event, stakeholders in Buffalo's African-American
community will read the Niagara Movement's 1905 "Declaration of
Principles" and present a "Declaration of Principles" for 2005.
Re-enactors representing historic figures associated with the
founding of the Niagara Movement will mingle with the crowd. Among the
historic personages they will represent are Talbert; the Rev. J. Edward
Nash, pastor of the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church who was involved in
the efforts to bring branches of the Urban League and the NAACP to
Buffalo; and Amelia Anderson, a founder of the Buffalo branch of the
NAACP who later served as the chapter's secretary and president.
Those on hand for the event will include Lillian Williams, associate
professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies;
Joseph Gardella, professor of chemistry and associate dean for external
relations for the College of Arts and Sciences, representing the
Environmental Justice Coalition; Mary Gresham, vice president for public
service and urban affairs and dean of the Graduate School of Education;
historian Carl Nightingale, director of the UB Seminar on Racial
Justice; and Ewa Ziarek, Park Professor of Comparative Literature in the
CAS, representing the university's Humanities Council. Also
present will be representatives of the national office of the NAACP, the
Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the
National African American Women's Leadership Institute, Niagara County
Legislator Renae Kimble and a representative of State Sen. Byron
Brown. Also, Laurene Buckley, director of the Castellani Art
Center at Niagara University; Monroe Fordham of the Regional History
Center at Buffalo State College; Madeline Scott, president of
Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier; and
Barbara Nevergold and Peggy Brooks Bertram, representing the Uncrowned
Queens Project. The Niagara Movement had its roots in a secret
meeting of 31 business, civic and religious leaders, including
sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, held in February 1905 in the
Buffalo home of Mary Burnett Talbot. In July of that year, these
and other African-American scholars, intellectuals, writers and
activists met in Niagara Falls, Ontario, to formally establish the
Niagara Movement and to issue its "Declaration of Principles," a plan
for the aggressive promotion of manhood suffrage and equal economic and
educational opportunities; an end to segregation, and the establishment
of full civil rights. The group famously denounced Booker T.
Washington's policy of accommodating the oppressive white hegemony as
set forth in his "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895. Led by
Du Bois, the movement held annual conferences in Buffalo and Harper's
Ferry and although short-lived, was very influential and, as they hoped,
"unleashed a mighty current of protest across the land." The group
lasted until the establishment of the NAACP in 1909 by many of the
founders of the Niagara Movement.
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