- [Narrator] July, 1905, 29 African American men traveled to Niagara Falls.

They were creating an organization to fight racism.

- These folks who are coming in on that stream to change America and to change the world, from the Old Testament, "Let justice roll down like cascades of water and righteousness like a mighty stream."

- The story of the Niagara Movement is the story of three African-American leaders with very different political philosophies.

- [Narrator] Two of the three were the heart and soul of the movement.

W.E.B.

Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter.

- [Speaker] W.E.B.

Du Bois is the most important African American intellectual and civil rights activist in American history.

William Monroe Trotter was the most fiery, passionate and uncompromising fighter for African American civil rights in the early 20th century.

- [Narrator] Du Bois and Trotter wanted to confront racial injustice head on, but the most powerful African American in the country preached accommodation, not confrontation.

- Booker T. Washington becomes black America's president, from about 1895 or so, he is it.

He's the strong man.

He's the head man, he's the boss.

- He tells white people, we don't need to be equal to you socially.

The Niagara Movement, it's the notion that we are breaking away from Booker T Washington's politics.

- You cannot talk about the struggle for civil rights in American history without acknowledging the Niagara Movement.

Even though it lasted only a few short years, it left an incredibly powerful legacy and an imprint on the way that we think about civil rights struggle today.

(upbeat music)