The Niagara Movement:Black Protest Reborn

1905- 2005

this marks the 117 th anniversary of this moment in Black history. This event took place at Niagara Falls in honor of the first African American meeting held to end racial discrimination. On July 11 thru 14, 1905 on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, twenty-nine men met and formed a group they called the Niagara Movement. The meeting had originally been planned to take place on the American side of the falls, but the delegates were denied accommodations by racially prejudiced hotel managers. They crossed over to the Canadian side where they were welcomed and received rooms without incident.The name came because of the location and the “mighty current” of protest they wished to unleash. “The Niagara Movement’s manifesto read in part: “We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America. The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans. It is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land of the thief and the home of the slave — a byword and a hissing among the nations for its sounding pretensions and pitiful accomplishment.”