The struggle for equality in the United States never ceased for some activists championing the rights of African Americans. They advocated for equal access to education and representation in the state and the federal government. Various organizations were formed during the early twentieth century to combat racism and fight for civil rights. These organizations had missions that guided their agenda and had influential leaders who fought tirelessly to ensure that the agenda was met.
The Niagara Movement was one of those organizations. It was formed in 1905, by W.E.B Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. The name signified a wind of change that the organization wished for. The group did not agree with the policies of conciliation and accommodation as championed by some African American leaders. This policy formed part of their mission, which was to oppose racial segregation and disfranchisement. The movement comprised of members who objected to a racist government policy.
The Niagara Movement in the inaugural meeting made a Declaration of Principles. The draft outlined the philosophies and also the political, social and economic demands of the group. In this declaration, there was an elaborate description of the progress that the Negro-Americans had made regarding intelligence, acquisition of property, management of crime rate, literature and art and uplift in home life among others. The movement required that the African Americans get manhood suffrage. The draft demanded equal rights, especially economic opportunities to ensure that they earned a decent living.
Some of the activities conducted by the Niagara Movement included establishing magazines that served as the mouthpiece for the policy and mission of the group. The Moon was founded by Du Bois but lacked funding after few months of publication therefore collapsing. The Horizon was founded in 1907 and lasted until 1910. Both the magazines published articles that propagated the African Americans civil rights and also condemned racial discrimination, especially against the negro-Americans. The movement also organized meetings, which discussed how to secure African Americans’ civil rights were fulfilled.
The organization also had several chapters that made great contributions to the advancement of civil rights. The Massachusetts chapter, for example, was successful in lobbying against legislation of the state that segregated railroad cars. The chapter was, however, unable to prevent the state from funding the Jamestown Exposition, an anniversary that was racially motivated. Although the Niagara Movement later collapsed due to major disagreements among the major founders, Trotter, and Du Bois, the movement formed a significant foundation for the NAACP.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was born partly because of the collapse of Niagara Movement. NAACP was established in 1909 by Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, and W.E.B Du Bois. The main objective of the group was “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”. The goals of the organization were, therefore, to deal with voter participation, unemployment, the lynching of the African Americans, education and the due process of the law. The formation of NAACP was catalyzed by the race riot that occurred in 1908 in Illinois. This occurrence was an urgent call that showed the importance of a robust civil rights movement in the United States. Another catalyst was the rise in the cases of the lynching of black men. These saw various activists converge to work on organizing for civil rights, and also calling on prominent Americans for support. The organization was finally set to be launched on February 12, 1909, a date that coincided with the 100th commemoration of Abraham Lincoln, a president who emancipated enslaved black Americans.
The NAACP used the court mainly to overturn the Jim Crow statues that were believed to promote racial segregation. Some years after the organization’s incorporation, the group organized a meeting that was aimed to oppose President Woodrow introduction of racial discrimination into the federal government offices, hiring, and policy. The group’s activities influenced the decision to incorporate African Americans in the Army during the First World War. As a result, hundreds of thousands of men were registered for the draft while six hundred African Americans were commissioned. In the year that followed, NAACP protested against Birth of a Nation, a silent film that seemed to honor the activities of Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, the film was banned in several cities.
It is the NAACP that challenged Guinn v. the United States of 1915 in its efforts to deal with disfranchisement and racial discrimination. The lawsuit had the grandfather clause, a piece that exempted most whites from having various voter registration requirements while disfranchising most black citizens. In 1917, the NAACP group managed to persuade the Supreme Court to do away with the law, which demanded that the African Americans to be segregated into separate residential districts by the state and local government.
NAACP dealt mostly with advocacy. At some point, the group sent an official to conduct an investigation death of over 200 black tenant farmers. The blacks were killed by government troops and white vigilantes after a police officer was attacked in a sharecroppers union’s meeting that resulted in the death of a white man. NAACP’s efforts saw it seek federal legislation against the lynching of African Americans. Their desire was however not fulfilled as the white Democrats voted against the motion, considering that there were no black representatives due to disfranchisement. The group, however, put much effort in ensuring that people who demeaned the African Americans had no important place in the government, which would influence decisions that would harm the people. An example is the NAACP’s success in preventing the appointment of John Johnson Parker to the Supreme Court, due to his anti-labor rulings. He was also a major supporter of denying the vote to blacks. Since the Southern states barred the blacks from political processes by creating white-only primaries, NAACP came up to challenge this “white primary”. The challenge was a success as the Supreme Court finally ruled against the white primary in 1944 in Smith v. Allwright. From that time henceforth, the legislatures came up with ways that aimed at limiting the franchise for blacks.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Community League was yet another civil rights organization. It was founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914. By the 1920s, the movement had established several branches in thirty-eight states in the United States of America. Garvey among other founders had the desire to work hard to uplift people of African ancestry and would do a lot to ensure that the rights of the African Americans were conserved and respected. The organization had a motto that believed in the existence of one God, one destiny and one aim with a broad mission that stated, “let justice be done to all mankind faith and charity towards all the reign of peace and plenty will be herald into the world, and the generations of men shall be called blessed”.
Garvey held belief that the only way to unite the African America was through improving their conditions. The Negro World was a newspaper launched in 1918, which expressed the ideas of this organization. The paper was distributed to people in the African diaspora until 1933 when the publications collapsed. The movement also purchased the liberty halls where the UNIA meetings were hosted. The first international convention for the group was held in 1920, and it saw the promulgation of the Declaration of Rights of the Negro people of the world. The program aimed at improving the lives of the African American race and also encouraged nationhood and self-reliance. The official banner of the African race was declared in this program which was of the colors, red, black and green.
The organization planned for the migration of the African Americans back to Africa, for those who were willing. The move saw some of the movement’s officials travel to Liberia to look for a potential land site. Their dream was however barred when the Liberian government ordered the closure of all Liberian ports to officials of the Garvey movement. Among the achievements of the UNIA included the establishment of various components such as the African Legion, the African Black Cross Society, the Black Eagle Flying Corps, and the Negro Factories Corporation among others. These auxiliary components offered employment to the African Americans, therefore, improving their lifestyle. The Negro factory corporation, for example, provided seven hundred jobs as it had several enterprises. With the finances, the movement got the ability to purchase additional liberty halls in other countries apart from the United States, which were used to hold meetings and spread its mission and policy.
In conclusion, several civil rights organizations were created to deal with issues that involved racism and oppression of the African Americans. The groups were mainly headed by people of both the white and black origin. Most felt that the blacks had all right just as the whites to receive education and equal representation in the state and the federal government. The first half of the twentieth century, therefore, saw the birth of the discussed civil rights organizations, whose main mission was to achieve equality for all as all humanity had one God and destiny.
Bibliography
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Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Separate is not Equal. n.d. http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/naacp.html (accessed April 5, 2016).
Trueman, C N. NAACP. March 27, 2015. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-civil-rights-movement-in-america-1945-to-1968/naacp/ (accessed April 5, 2016).
Wormser, Richard. The rise and fall of Jim Crow. n.d. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_niagara.html (accessed April 5, 2016).
