Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles

Questions for Further Study

• 1. In what ways did the Declarations of Principles represent a new and different African American approach to prejudice, discrimination, and racism? Explain exactly what was new and different and what was not.
• 2. Was the Declaration of Principles a radical or a conservative document? Explain your answer both in the context of 1905 and in terms of concepts of radical, conservative, and civil rights today.
• 3. What is the difference between the Niagara Movement and the NAACP? Explain how the Declaration of Principles relates to each of these organizations.
• 4. The Declaration of Principles called upon Congress for the “enactment of appropriate legislation for securing the proper enforcement of those articles of freedom, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution of the United States.” In what sense were these three amendments “articles of freedom”? What freedoms did they guarantee? To what extent had they not been enforced? Since Congress had initially approved these amendments, why had they not been enforced?
• 5. “Agitation” and “protest” are recurring themes in the Declaration of Principles. What did the Niagara Movement mean by these terms? What did most Americans at the time think about African American agitation and protest? Explain how the Niagara Movement and later the NAACP utilized agitation and protest.