Sometimes, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the significance of lessons from the past in order to help shape our understanding of the present. As a nation, we are living in one of the most historic political moments in history. While the groundbreaking race for the US presidency has captured the attention of the world, the failed foreign and domestic policies of the current president have led to record-high profits for oil companies amid a national recession, which has forced working Americans to struggle with keeping their homes, affording gas, and living without the fear of a vague “terrorist attack.” There are more people (disproportionately African American and Latino) in prison than ever before, and an increasing victimization of children.

As I thought about the state of this nation, I was reminded that to struggle is as natural to the American social fabric as the dream of prosperity. To assess the conditions of our society and demand an improvement is central to the American ethos…so why does it feel that so many of us have become complacent? Why are so many content with the disparities we see in health care, criminal justice, education, the economy, and other institutions on our society?

As I was thinking about this question, I was reminded of the principles established by The Niagara Movement in 1905, an organization of 29 men of African descent, led by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who protested injustice through a coordinated strategy to demand an end to the dehumanization faced by African Americans at the time. While the focus of the Niagara Movement was certainly the protection and advancement of people of African descent, there are lessons from this movement that are applicable to everyone.

Today, people of every race, creed, and orientation are affected by the state of our nation’s policies and practices. As such, it is critically important to remind ourselves of the protest tradition that strengthens our ability to be a great nation. We learned from Frederick Douglass that power concedes nothing without demand. We learned from Barbara Jordan that in order to fulfill our national purpose, we need to actively seek to remove obstacles that undermine our ability to respond to the needs of the people. And we learned from The Niagara Movement that in order to oppose dehumanizing policies, there must be a nationwide commitment to gender justice, civil liberty, decent housing, sound and racism-free criminal justice policies and practices, as well as equal economic development and educational opportunities. At a time when most Americans are concerned about the direction of this nation, this sounds like protest rhetoric (and action) worth revisiting.

Excepts from the Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles (1905):

We especially complain against the denial of equal opportunities to us in economic life; in the rural districts of the South this amounts to peonage peonage, system of involuntary servitude based on the indebtedness of the laborer to his creditor. It was prevalent in Spanish America, especially in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru. and virtual slavery; all over the South it tends to crush labor and small business enterprises; and everywhere American prejudice, helped often by iniquitous laws, is making it more difficult for Negro-Americans to earn a decent living.

We note with alarm the evident retrogression; degeneration; deterioration; regression; return to an earlier, less complex condition in this land, of sound public opinion on the subject of manhood rights, republican government and human brotherhood, and we pray God that this nation will not degenerate into a mob of boasters and oppressors, but rather will return to the faith of the fathers, that all men were created free and equal, with certain unalienable rights.

We urge upon Congress the enactment of appropriate legislation for securing the proper enforcement of those articles of freedom, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

For more information about The Niagara Movement, please visit the following:

Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition: Yale University

The Niagara Movement

Jim Crow Stories

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