Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles

Glossary

• Abolitionist a person who advocated the complete, immediate, and unconditional abolition of slavery, especially in the United States, prior to and during the Civil War
• agitation the persistent and sustained effort to create change or promote a cause through appeals, discussions, demonstrations, and other means
• artisans skilled craftsmen or workers
• assents agrees with; accepts, or admits as true
• barbarous uncivilized; savage; brutal; cruel
• civil rights rights guaranteed to all citizens by law or the Constitution regardless of such differences as race
• common school a free public elementary school
• compulsory required, usually by law or other authority
• convict-lease system a system of labor in which prisoners are leased to an employer by the court or the prison system
• curtailment the act of limiting or restricting; the act of taking away a right or privilege
• deserts that which is deserved; worthiness through good behavior
• execration vehement denunciation
• hallowed sacred; respected; venerated beyond question
• iniquitous unjust
• “Jim Crow” car a segregated railroad coach, usually of inferior quality, set aside for African Americans
• orphanages institutions that house and care for children who have no parents
• peonage a system of agricultural labor in which workers are bound to their job, often against their will, by economic debt or other means; virtual bondage
• retrogression a reversal in development of condition; moving backward or becoming worse
• suffrage the right to vote
• upright moral; honorable; fair and just
• wantonly cruelly; without mercy