The Niagara Movement was a civil rights group organized by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter in 1905. After being denied admittance to hotels in Buffalo, New York, the group of twenty-nine business owners, teachers, and clergy who comprised the initial meeting gathered at Niagara Falls, Ontario (Canada) from which the group’s name derives.
The principles behind the Niagara Movement were largely in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of Accommodationism. Trotter, editor of the Boston Guardian, had publicly reprimanded Washington at a Boston, Massachusetts meeting in 1903. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois had also condemned Washington for his lowered expectations for African Americans. The Niagara Movement drafted a “Declaration of Principles,” part of which stated: “We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults.”
The Niagara Movement attempted to bring about legal change, addressing the issues of crime, economics, religion, health, and education. The movement stood apart from other black organizations at the time because of its powerful, unequivocal demand for equal rights. The Niagara Movement forcefully demanded equal economic and educational opportunity as well as the vote for black men and women. Members of the Niagara Movement sent a powerful message to the entire country through their condemnation of racial discrimination and their call for an end to segregation.
While the movement had grown to include to 170 members in 34 states by 1906, it also encountered difficulties. W.E.B. Du Bois supported the inclusion of women in the Niagara Movement, William Monroe Trotter did not. Trotter left the movement in 1908 to start his own group, the Negro-American Political League.
The Niagara Movement met annually until 1908. In that year a major race riot broke out in Springfield, Illinois. Eight blacks were killed and over 2,000 African Americans fled the city. Symbolically important because it was the first northern race riot in four decades and because it was in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, black and white activists, including members of the Niagara Movement, felt a new more powerful, interracial organization was now needed to combat racism. Out of this concern, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed. The Niagara Movement was considered the precursor to the NAACP and many of its members, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, were among the new organization’s founders.
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Man I so hate the fact that I searched for a new place for three years, found one that was cheap and had seemingly chill roommates and now I just feel more sad and lonely than I ever felt at the old shitty place. Like sure the last place was shittier and more expensive and I kinda hated my roommates, but at least there I didn't want to hang out with them and I had a cat to cuddle with. Here is hurts that my roommates seemingly just aren't interested at all in doing stuff and I just feel like a total fucking loser for wanting to do stuff with them but I so don't feel like having to beg to hang out and feeling like everything gets initiated by me.
why do i have to beg for even an ounce of human interaction, what kind of social ubermensch would i need to be to not be lonely as all hell. i love how the continuing and never-ending housing crisis has made it so that even people who don't actually want to live together with other people need to have roommates, leaving me with fucking assholes who sure can pretend to want to be roommates when they get to know you, but then nonchalantly tell you that the happiest time they've ever spent in the shared apartment that they've lived in for five years were the three months that they lived in it alone. like ok you've got a girlfriend you are at every weekend ok then move in together just get the fuck away and let someone else move in who might feel more like actually living together who doesn't see this giant shared space as anything other than a cheap place to shower and sleep.
and then people tell you to not to care about romantic relationships too much, when its clear those are the only relationships that are ever allowed to last. i dont want to plan my life alone. i do not want to make every decision alone. i do not want all my relationships to be temporary. i do not want to be a single social atom floating around in the emptiness that is "there is no such thing as society" society we live in. i want to go home and find somebody there who cares for me. i want somebody to tell me they want me, i want somebody to tell me they want me.
that is not a weird thing to want. that is not a special thing to want. that is a very normal human thing to want and a very normal thing to be sad about not having.