In 1905 he helped found the Niagara Movement, a group of African American activists who wanted to end segregation and discrimination in the U.S. and ensure equal economic, political, social, and educational rights for Black people. The movement drafted a manifesto that demanded, among other things, full manhood suffrage and the abolition of all caste distinctions based on race and color.

In 1904, Du Bois joined William Monroe Trotter and others to form the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization advocating full political equality for African Americans. Despite initial excitement, the Niagara Movement ultimately floundered; yet this experience laid the groundwork for Du Bois’s co-founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. At the NAACP, Du Bois served as an officer, board member, and editor of its newspaper, The Crisis.

W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963) was a famous scholar and activist who fought for civil rights for black people in both the United States and Africa. This provocative collection of essays helped establish him as a leading progressive critic of the “color line” which was still dividing Americans at the turn of the twentieth century despite the wartime destruction of slavery and the post-war constitutional promise of equality. DuBois embraced a more radical approach to civil rights activism than some other black leaders of his time, most notably Booker T. Washington, whom he pointedly criticized in one of his more memorable essays.

After the collapse of efforts to compromise their differences through a series of meetings in 1904, Du Bois joined William Monroe Trotter and other Washington opponents to form the Niagara Movement, an organization militantly advocating full civil and political rights for African Americans. In its monthly issues he rallied black support for NAACP policies and programs and excoriated white opposition to equal rights.

Du Bois criticized Washington for not demanding equality for African Americans, as granted by the 14th Amendment. Du Bois fought what he saw as Washington’s message of accommodation to white supremacy, and instead pressed for political action and the assertion of civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

He challenged the position held by Booker T. Washington, another contemporary prominent intellectual, that Southern Blacks should compromise their basic rights in exchange for education and legal justice. He also spoke out against the notion popularized by abolitionist Frederick Douglass that Black Americans should integrate with white society. The NAACP, through its magazine The Crisis, edited by Du Bois, argued for full civil rights and an end to the caste system based on race.

Early in his career he believed that social sciences would help end racism, but soon he realized that agitation was the only option. Du Bois challenged other African American leaders like Booker T. Washington. Du Bois believed that whites needed to be challenged if African Americans were to truly become equal. He also felt that Washington accommodated whites too much, which allowed for the continuation of white supremacy.

– On this day seventy years ago, the NAACP submitted a petition, “An Appeal to the World” edited by W.E.B. Du Bois to the United Nations to address the denial of human rights to African Americans in the United States. Du Bois spearheaded an Appeal to the World that detailed the discrimination faced by racial minorities in the United States and called on the international community to hold the U.S. accountable to its human rights obligations.

Therefore, Peoples of the World, we American Negroes appeal to you; our treatment in America is not merely an internal question of the United States. It is a basic problem of humanity. The Government of the United States is thus not simply bound by the laws of its own Constitution relative to its treatment of its citizens of Negro descent, but also by the Charter of the United Nations, by the Declaration of Human Rights, and by the covenants and obligations registered with the United Nations. We therefore ask that the United Nations investigate this situation and take such action as may be found necessary to ensure our basic human rights as citizens of the United States and as members of the human race.

Leading the charge with petitions and declarations to state and federal US government officials as well as officials of international political bodies like the League of Nations and UN, Du Bois boldly challenged white politicians and power brokers of white-controlled nations to address their social misdeeds, specifically their human rights abuses of US blacks and blacks worldwide. In 1905, the Niagara Movement was born when Du Bois joined forces with other politically progressive, social reformist black Americans who coalesced to address human rights-based advocacy issues.

Seventy years ago this week, the oldest civil rights organization in the world, the NAACP, submitted a petition to the newly established United Nations demanding accountability for human rights violations against African Americans in the United States. The 96-page petition was written over the course of a year under the editorial supervision of W.E.B. Du Bois. Its six chapters, each written by a leading expert, cover topics ranging from slavery and Jim Crow to voting rights, criminal justice, education, employment and access to health care – areas in which discrimination remains deeply rooted to this day.

This Article focuses on the career of W.E.B. Du Bois, tracing how he built coalitions between civil rights and antiwar organizations to pursue a series of shared legal objectives. Conceptually, Du Bois linked the antiwar movement’s call for domestic and international laws to regulate warfare with the civil rights movement’s call for laws to expand racial equality. Du Bois ultimately articulated a much more radical vision for the emerging ‘international law of peace,’ as he demanded not just a formal ban on war, but also a series of sweeping, structural changes that he saw as the legal path to lasting peace—including global decolonization, economic redistribution, and, domestically, equal civil, political, and social rights.

Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. As a scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, Du Bois exposed the structural roots of racism and challenged America to live up to its democratic ideals. Through his research, writing, and advocacy, he helped shape the modern civil rights movement and inspired generations to continue the struggle for equality. Through his editorials and essays, he exposed racial injustice, lynching, and economic inequality, and used his platform to advocate for civil rights, women’s suffrage, and anti-colonial movements across the globe.

Du Bois's writings on woman suffrage fulfilled this need: His editorials and opinion essays argued that African Americans should support woman suffrage in order to promote democracy and ally themselves with progressive forces. He linked the struggle for black civil rights with the broader fight for political equality, insisting that denying women the vote undermined democratic principles in the same way that disfranchising African Americans did.

After obtaining a doctorate from Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois emerged as a major critic of Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist approach. Du Bois argued that African Americans should pursue higher education and demand full civil rights rather than focus solely on vocational training and accept segregation. He helped found the Niagara Movement, which called for an end to racial discrimination, equal voting rights, and the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of citizenship and equal protection.

W.E.B. Du Bois took a different approach. While he also valued education and achievement, he argued that Black Americans should fight for full civil rights and political representation rather than accept segregation and second-class citizenship. Du Bois believed that demanding equality under the law was essential for Black progress in the United States.

“W.E.B. Du Bois authored 17 books, co-founded the NAACP, and challenged the ideas of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. He even created infographics to depict the color line and explain why Black Americans were being held back. What Du Bois does in this moment is what he has always done – champion people of color and oppressed citizens of caste societies globally by fiercely addressing what he prophetically and famously wrote in his 1903 publication, The Souls of Black Folk: ‘the problem of the 20th century is the color line.’”

This famous quote by W.E.B. Du Bois is from his 1905 “Niagara Movement Speech”. It was part of a powerful declaration demanding full civil and political rights for African Americans, including the right to vote, equal treatment before the law, and the end of discrimination and segregation.