African American Civil Rights

There is a scholarly consensus that early histories of the postwar civil rights movement focused too much on Martin Luther King Jr. Those works were also preoccupied with the period 1955–1968, neglecting earlier developments. Angela Jones argues that similar misconceptions have marred our understanding of the Niagara Movement, a group founded in 1905 to fight segregation and disfranchisement. The Booker T. Washington–W. E. B. Du Bois rivalry is another example of the “tendency to reduce African American civil rights history to a few key leaders” (p. 3). In reality, Washington and Du Bois were figureheads in a wider debate within African American society between competing radical and conservative publics. The Niagara Movement was not just an extension of Du Bois's personality; it was also a communications hub that engaged in democratic decision making by numerous local power brokers. The perception of the Niagara Movement as a well-intentioned failure is also unjust. Its achievements cannot be measured solely by the goals accomplished during its lifetime. It must be judged by its long-term contribution to the civil rights struggle. In generating dialogue within the black community on how to challenge racial injustice, the group's formation was a precondition for later legal attempts at reform by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

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