Historical Reenactments, Declaration of Principles, Will Mark Centennial of the Niagara Movement

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Department of African American Studies will sponsor a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Niagara Movement with an event to be held at 11 a.m. on July 9.

Most Buffalonians have no idea that the influential National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is rooted in the work of pioneering civic, religious, education and business leaders of Buffalo's African American community.

Those leaders set the stage for the founding of the Niagara Movement, which blazed the trail for civil justice for African Americans in the 20th century.

The celebration will take place at 521 Michigan St., site of the home of Mary Barnett Talbot (1866-1923), a nationally distinguished figure in the movement for social justice for African Americans and women, and founding member of the both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP.

During the event, stakeholders in Buffalo's African American community will read the Niagara Movement's 1905 "Declaration of Principles" and present a "Declaration of Principles" for 2005.

Re-enactors representing historic figures associated with the founding of the Niagara Movement will mingle with the crowd. Among the historic personages they will represent are Mary Burnett Talbert, the legendary Rev. J. Edward Nash and Amelia Anderson. (Further information on these individuals follows).

Those on hand for the event will include Lillian Williams, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the UB Department of African American Studies, Joseph Gardella, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at UB, representing the Environmental Justice Coalition; Mary Gresham, Ph.D., UB vice president for public service and urban affairs and dean of the Graduate School of Education; historian Carl Nightingale, Ph.D., director of the UB Seminar on Racial Justice, and Ewa Ziarek, Park Professor of Comparative Literature at UB, representing the university's Humanities Council.

Also present will be representatives of the national office of the NAACP; the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; the National African American Women's Leadership Institute; Niagara County Legislator Renae Kimble, and a representative of State Senator Byron Brown.

Also, Laurene Buckley, director of the Castellani Art Center at Niagara University; Monroe Fordham of the Regional History Center at Buffalo State College; Madeline Scott, president of Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier, and Barbara Nevergold, Ph.D., and Peggy Brooks Bertram, Ph.D., representing the Uncrowned Queens Project.

The Niagara Movement

The Niagara Movement had its roots in a secret meeting of 31 business, civic and religious leaders, including sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, held in February 1905 in the Buffalo home of Mary Burnett Talbot.

In July of that year, these and other African-American scholars, intellectuals, writers and activists, met in Niagara Falls, Ontario, to formally establish the Niagara Movement and to issue its "Declaration of Principles," a plan for the aggressive promotion of manhood suffrage, and equal economic and educational opportunities; an end to segregation, and the establishment of full civil rights.

The group famously denounced Booker T. Washington's policy of accommodating the oppressive white hegemony as set forth in his "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895.

Led by Du Bois, the movement held annual conferences in Buffalo and Harper's Ferry and although short-lived, was very influential and, as they hoped, "unleashed a mighty current of protest across the land." The group lasted until the establishment of the NAACP in 1909 by many of the founders of the Niagara Movement.

Subjects of re-enactments

Mary Talbert, founding member of the Niagara Movement and of the NAACP, also served as president of the National Association of Negro Women, and president of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Association. She was a delegate to the International Council of Women in Norway, and lectured internationally on race relations and women's rights.

Talbert was a graduate of Oberlin College and attended the UB. During the First World War she served as a Red Cross nurse on the Western Front. Afterward, she toured Europe, giving lectures on women's rights and race relations.

In 1921, just two years before her death, she traveled thousands of miles making public speeches and organizing the Anti Lynching Crusaders in an attempt to gain support for a bill introduced by Congressman Leonidas Dyer of Missouri that would have curtailed the extremely high number of lynchings occurring in the United States after World War I.

Rev. J. Edward Nash was the pastor of the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church from 1892 until his retirement in 1953. His leadership and presence was legendary in Buffalo's African-American community for 50 years. He was involved in the efforts to bring branches of the Urban League and the NAACP to Buffalo and was also a long-time leader and treasurer of the Western New York Baptist Association. For 32 years he was secretary of the inter-racial and influential Ministers Alliance of Buffalo.

Because he was widely respected by the city's white leadership, Rev. Nash had direct access to the mayor and other local elected officials. He often used his access to elected officials and business leaders to gain benefits for the African-American community and/or its individual citizens.

Amelia Anderson received a doctorate from Syracuse University, one of the first African American to attend that institution. She was a founder of the Buffalo branch of the NAACP in 1914, and later served as the chapter's secretary and president.

She also taught school in Buffalo and was president of the Buffalo Chapter of Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs.