BHS Day 28: William Monroe Trotter

Hello and welcome to the final day of this year's Black History Spotlight! As much fun as this has been--its fun every year--I'd be lying if I was sad to see it go this time around. To be perfectly honest, I had to make myself finish the series. Unless you were hiding under a rock (in which case I'm angry at you for not taking me with you), this February wasn't the best showing of Black excellence. It hasn't been the best month, so I'm ready to start fresh. But before we do that, we're going to tip our hats to one last entrant, who also believed in the concept of Black excellence and equal opportunities for us to achieve greatness--some would argue that he believed in it a little intensely, as a word I often heard bounced around his name was 'militant.' Let's learn why. 

Source

Name: William Monroe Trotter, 1872-1934 Profession: Civil rights activist, newspaper editor and journalist Why is the Spotlight on him today? For his efforts and fearlessness to break from the ranks of his own to ensure Blacks received equal rights Notables:
--Co-founded the Boston Literary and Historical Association 
--Was the first Black student at Harvard to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa fraternity
--Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with his master's degree
--Was posthumously honored by the University of Massachusetts with an institute bearing his name
--Created The Guardian, which was a militant based newspaper designed to tackle race relations, critique the views of prominent Black figures at the time, and advocate for Black equality
--Attended the 1909 conference that gave birth to the NAACP but refused to align himself with the organization because he felt it was too liberal and that there should be an all-Black group
--Was jailed for a month in a now-infamous event called the Boston Riot, in which he heckled and argued with one of his biggest rivals, Booker T. Washington, during one of the latter's public speeches, as an effort to bring more publicity to his cause
--Co-created The Niagara Movement alongside W.E.B. DuBois and a number of prominent Black leaders as an organization meant to provide another viewpoint to the conversation of Black equality, from the opposite perspective as the more diplomatic approach of the Booker T. Washington train of thought
--Was posthumously honored by his alma mater with the William Monroe Trotter Scholars Program
--Used his newspaper to lobby campaigns against (then)current-day Hollywood movies with racist or discriminatory undertones
--Was initially denied a passport to attend the Paris Peace Conference but was denied; he stowed himself away on a ship and was able to lobby for the organization to outlaw racial discrimination (which was ultimately an unsuccessful bid)
--Created the groundwork, along with others, for what became the standard activist behavior during the civil rights movement
--Was posthumously honored by the National Historic Landmarks Program with having his former home declared a private national landmark Further reading links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4


Quote of the Day: 
"We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social."
--Part of The Niagara Movement manifesto