Niagara Movement was an organization founded by African Americans to fight racial discrimination in the United States. It existed from 1905 to 1910. At its height, the Niagara Movement had 30 branches in various U.S. cities. It failed to win the support of most Black people, but many of its ideas were adopted in 1909 by a new interracial organization—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The Niagara Movement was founded in Niagara Falls, Canada. W. E. B. Du Bois, an African American professor at Atlanta University, led the organization (see Du Bois, W. E. B.). The movement placed the responsibility for racial problems in the United States on white people. The movement thus opposed the view of the famous African American educator Booker T. Washington, who urged Black people to stop demanding equal rights (see Washington, Booker T.). Various branches of the movement demanded voting rights for African Americans, opposed school segregation, and worked to elect candidates who promised to fight racial prejudice.
