Aug. 15, 1906
The Niagara Movement (forerunner to the NAACP) met at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the site of John Brown’s raid. The group even conducted a barefoot pilgrimage to the site.
Headed by W.E.B. DuBois, the organization called for enforcement of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
“The Negro race in America, stolen, ravished and degraded, struggling up through difficulties and oppression, needs sympathy and receives criticism; needs help and is given hindrance, needs protection and is given mob-violence, needs justice and is given charity, needs leadership and is given cowardice and apology, needs bread and is given a stone,” the statement of principles said. “This nation will never stand justified before God until these things are changed.”
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