Danielle Cozine

BIC 1413
Dr. Edwards
11 November 2014
Men of Niagara and the Second Persona
A movement as long and drawn out as the American Civil Rights movement has to start
somewhere. And just like a baby learning to walk, it is unreasonable to assume that this
particular movement, with all the challenges it needed to overcome, that the movement got off to
a perfect start. W.E.B Du Bois speech Men of Niagara was directed toward the members of
the Niagara Movement, which was a precursor to the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), a group that still exists today (Jones 22). Du Boiss speech, when
analyzed through Blacks second persona, indicates the speaker expected improvement from his
existing audience, and hoped to motivate them into becoming an ideal audience capable of
transcending the segregation so prevalent in his era through education, ridding the world of Jim
Crow segregation and advocating the fundamental right to vote. This ideal is far from
unreasonable, and in fact necessary if the advancement of humanity is to be sought after.
The speech was given August 16, 1906, to a group of African American men and their
families at the second meeting of the Niagara Movement. Du Bois speech had several goals.
One was to reiterate some of the more important directives of the Niagara Movement, according
to its constitution, including but not limited to, the right to votefor discrimination in public
accommodation to ceasefor our children to be educated. Another goal was to try and
determine which direction this new movement would head in. Du Bois chose an interesting
advocate for this: John Brown. This was a man who conducted a raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859,
which killed one person and injured many more, before Brown was killed himself (John
Browns Raid). Du Bois uses him not because he used violence to advocate his rights for
himself, but admired him for that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness

to sacrifice money, reputation and life itself on the altar of right. This was the direction Du Bois
wished to take with the Niagara Movement, and one he thought would be most effective in the
struggle for African American rights.
Most commonly known as W.E.B. Du Bois, he was born William Edward Burghardt Du
Bois in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868. There he was supported by teachers and family
throughout his education, and went on to be the first African American to earn a Ph. D. from
Harvard University. His experiences in Nashville Tennessee were the first he had with Jim Crow
laws and discrimination. He wrote extensively and was a large part of the early Civil Rights
movement, in some ways acting as a precursor to Martin Luther King Jr. He was heavily
involved in the creation of the NAACP and the Niagara movement both, and was an advocate for
African American rights as a race equal to the Caucasians (William Edward Burghardt Du
Bois). This caused much conflict with a man named Booker T. Washington, who was also an
advocate of civil rights but believed the way to gain ground for the African American was
through trade programshaving African Americans enter the work place. The differences
between their ideas caused conflict within the Civil Rights movement, and problems for the
fledgling Niagara Movement (Jones 29).
The Niagara Movement was founded in 1905 when Du Bois called a conference of Negro
leaders, incorporating Statements like We believe that Negroes should protest emphatically and
continually against the curtailment of their political rights (Bergmen 344). Consisting of around
fifty members from fourteen states, it was also only had African Americans members. The group,
of course, advocated for civil rights in the Du Bois waythrough the pursuit of equal rights
and equal opportunity. Around this time, many violent incidents occurred across the country,
including the Boston Riot of 1903, the Atlanta Riot and the Brownsville Affair, both occurring in
1906. The Niagara Movement used these events to make racial injustice a public issue (Jones

19). Du Bois speech was given shortly after the Brownsville Affair, which occurred in
Brownsville, Texas when an African American soldier had an altercation with a white
Brownsville merchant. For this Brownsville was put off limits for the Battalion. In protest a
dozen or more Negro soldiers entered the town, shooting wildly in the streets, killing one white
man, wounding two others including the chief of police (Bergmen 347). The political spotlight
was on the civil rights movement, and Du Bois utilized this in his speech.
His immediate audience may have been like minded individuals and families, but Du
Bois most definitely advocated to a broader audience. Recounting the main objectives of the
Niagara Movement not only directs his immediate audience away from the idea that violence is
the only way to get attention for their cause, a thought that was surely going through many
peoples minds considering the amount of attention the riots were getting, but also to inform the
rest of the country of exactly what the Niagara Movement was all about. It also served to assure
both the members and those outside it that the Movement was not, in fact, violent. Du Bois used
the case of John Brown in order to contrast exactly how different a movement like this was from
the riotsrather than using violence the way John Brown did, however, Du Bois is advocating
the pursuit of equal standing. He is justifying John Browns anger while simultaneously
condemning the actions. In this way he molds his existing audience into his ideal one, which is
an audience of multiple races standing side by side in equal standing.
Through the speech, the listener understands something else that is important about the
immediate audience: it is very possible that many of them were not nearly as well educated as
Du Bois. They were people who were leaders among the African American community, which
does not necessarily mean they were highly educated. This is why education has such an
emphasis, because these men have realized that equal education is the best way to earn equality.
The rest of the existing audience, which includes every American of the time, has varying levels

of intelligence and educationand to them Du Bois advocates education just as vehemently,

saying either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United
States (Du Bois).

Works Cited
Jones, Angela. African Amercan Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement.
Santabarbra, CA: Praeger, 1978. Print.
Du Bois, William E. B., Dr. "Men of Niagara." Second Annual Meeting of the Niagara
Movement. Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West VA. 10 Nov. 2014. Speech.
"John Brown's Raid." John Brown's Raid (2009): 1. Middle Search Plus. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
"William Edward Burghardt Du Bois." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 11 Nov.
2014.
Bergman, Peter M., and Mort N. Bergman. The Chronological History of the Negro in America.
New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Print.