Monroe Trotter’s Protest to Woodrow Wilson (1914)
In 1914, Boston Guardian editor William Monroe Trotter delivered a stinging protest to Woodrow Wilson concerning segregation in the federal bureaucracy. As a candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1912, Wilson had proposed a platform based on what he characterized as “new freedom.” In doing so, Wilson had made promises to African Americans that he could be counted on to provide fairness if elected. However, upon his election, Wilson reneged on his original promise and instituted a policy of racial segregation in both the Department of the Treasury and the Post Office Department. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the leading civil rights group in the nation at that time, forwarded a letter of protest to Wilson, but their efforts were ignored. On November 6, 1913, and again on November 12, 1914, President Wilson met with a delegation of African American leaders from the National Independent Equal Rights League. Their...
