American history is full of examples of how successful social movements can be a positive tool for societal change. For instance, the American Revolution illustrates how a few individuals dedicated to a single philosophy can even create a New Nation. Sometimes, however, it may take generations before a social movement’s objectives are realized. W.E.B. DuBois established the Niagara movement to show the world how America had failed to live up to its responsibilities to its black citizens by allowing, and in many instances encouraging Jim Crow racism. It would be nearly fifty years before Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association successfully demonstrated the absurdity of race-based segregation and the power inherent in social movements.

W.E.B. DuBois and the Niagara Movement

Successful social movements rely on the organized and dedicated efforts of a group of people in initiating social change. When DuBois broke ideologically with Booker T. Washington’s “can’t we all just get along” accomodationist strategy found in the Atlanta Compromise, he did so publicly and often rudely. Nonetheless, his creation of the Niagara movement signaled that blacks would no longer accept social and political mistreatment quietly.

Within a few years the Niagara movement grew into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP). The early years of the NAACP were spent exposing the barbarity of lynching. DuBois and other NAACP leaders failed to understand how a country that would accuse others of human rights violations would tolerate such actions within its own borders. This stench of hypocrisy eventually led to DuBois’ self-imposed exile from the land of his birth.