Black History Month Essay No. 1
Prof. J.S. Harrison ©February 2005
Portland Community College-Cascade Campus
The Mighty Lion of Boston
William Monroe Trotter was upset and disappointed and rightly so. When he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in June of 1895 he should have been set for a charmed life. Typically, Harvard graduates were sought out for professional positions and could look forward to comfortable middle class lives interspersed with a dash of noblese oblige assistance to the less fortunate. Having been elected to the prestigious Phi Theta Kappa honor society was gilding on an illustrious four-year college career. The relatively wealthy, handsome, talented stocky five-foot eight inch 140 pounder should have breezed through life. A life that should have been a dream was turning out to be a nightmare.
Following graduation he sought a position commensurate with his abilities, as befits one who graduates eighth in a class of 270. Like most students at the time he did not have a “major” but took an extensive array of courses from history to philosophy to science to writing, which was the only discipline in which he did not earn a B or better grade. His desire was to work for an established real estate firm, possibly following in his father’s footsteps, or perhaps a banking establishment, preferably one that had a foreign office so that he could travel to Europe. His wide eyes were soon disappointed and the only position that clamored for his services was a school with an offer of $1,000 a year, certainly more than sufficient for the times, but it was located far south, in Washington, DC and it was a “separate” school, a segregated institution. Even before the 1896 Plessy Decision made segregation the law of the land it was widely practiced in the South. Monroe Trotter refused to become part of that system and declined the offer. The first job that stumbled his way was a clerkship for an industrial fair. After the fair left town he spent the next three years clerking at minor firms with a mounting feeling of disappointment.
For a determined intelligent man this must have been an awful setback and a painful reminder of the racially prejudiced times in which he lived. We often associate Jim Crow segregation with the South, however, it was a nationwide phenomena. Finally, family connections landed him a permanent position with an established real estate firm. Now settled, he married a talented, energetic and aspiring young woman and they established themselves in the posh Hyde Park district of Boston. At this time he could have settled into a comfortable life but the irritant of job refusals rankled him and he established economic independence by founding an insurance company. Over the next two years this tempest tossed soul discovered the cause to which he would devote the remainder of his life. And the vehicles that he used were his newspaper, the Guardian established in 1901, and several Boston-based civil rights organizations.
This paper argues that William Monroe Trotter was a major force in countering the movement towards greater prejudice and segregation in the early 1900s. This will be demonstrated through an investigation of three key incidents in his life. You will come to see that this dedicated leader planted and nourished the seeds of a civil rights movement that would later grow and expand across the Southland and into the national conscience.
In 1895, the year that Mr. Trotter graduated from Harvard two momentous events transpired. First of all in February the great Frederick Douglass, aged 77, died of a heart attack. In September of that year Booker T. Washington’s star soared and he became Douglass’ heir apparent after delivering a well crafted speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech, famous for its exhortation that Blacks and Whites work together to forge a new South also signified that Blacks should not agitate on matters of civil rights, the opposite attitude of Frederick Douglass. The Tuskegee Institute leader had quickly become a national sensation.
The feeling that it evoked in Monroe Trotter was not pride but indignation and anger. For over a decade Black people in the South had been systematically stripped of their civil rights by Jim Crow legislation that created miserable conditions in the South. For a Black leader to silently sanction this was intolerable and the pages of the Guardian were replete with attacks against Booker T. Washington’s tolerance of the status quo. The Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s separate railway cars act for Black passengers and invented the “separate but equal” doctrine. The Jim Crow age was in full swing. It was easy to see that Mr. Washington’s conciliatory stance fit in with that decision and Mr. Trotter could almost feel the cool chill of racism wafting in from the South, a wind borne germ that would infect the entire nation. The two men did not see eye to eye and battled it out in the press, with T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Age being a prominent pro-Booker paper. It was only a matter of time for one of Mr. Washington’s northern fundraising trips to land in Boston and the scene was set for a public confrontation such as never had been seen before.
In 1903 Booker T. Washington boldy entered the bastion of Boston’s Black opposition to re-assert his status as the leader and arbiter of Black relations with the nation. Monroe Trotter had different ideas. It was a hot July day when Booker T. made his appearance. Monroe Trotter and his fellow anti-Bookerites had planned to discredit the Tuskegean by publicly challenging his conciliatory policy and opposition to civil rights initiatives. The meeting was well attended and the stage was set. Washington, normally an engaging speaker, stood at the podium voiceless and seemingly dazed as a Guardian employee loudly questioned his policies. The man was quickly escorted out by Boston police, who had been alerted that there might be trouble. Immediately afterwards someone threw a chair and the meeting became an uproar. Monroe Trotter stood up on his chair and began to loudly read from a list of nine questions that the Guardian staff had prepared. It did not really matter whether Washington answered because every newspaper there would record the questions and Washington’s response or lack of would be exposed. Unfortunately the pandemonium obscured his voice. Accused of being the instigator of the disruptions, the police arrested him.
This so-called Boston Riot polarized the liberal-conservative split and was one factor that led to the calling of a conference in Niagara Falls that resulted in the establishment of the anti-Bookerite Niagara Movement. Most writings on the topic refer to WEB DuBois as the key member but Monroe Trotter was the most outspoken and adamant member. He remained at the periphery of the Movement and later drifted away from the organization but his fiery pen continued an assault on the deterioration of civil rights in general and Booker T. specifically.
In those days about 90% of Blacks voted Republican, the “Party of Lincoln,” but Monroe Trotter broke ranks and pioneered the cross over that occurred thirty years later. Please note that the Republican Party of the early 21st Century is NOT the “Party of Lincoln” but rather, a party controlled by renegade Democrats who switched affiliations in the 1970s when the national Democratic Party became a firm defender of civil rights. South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond, who was a racist Dixiecrat in 1948 and became a Republican following President Nixon’s “southern strategy” in the late 1960s, is a perfect example of this change. The Guardian broke with precedent in 1912 when it endorsed Democrat Woodrow Wilson for the presidency. Mr. Trotter was convinced that the Republicans had become as stagnant in support of civil rights as their devoted supporter Booker T. Washington, the Wizard of Tuskegee. He urged his readers to vote for Wilson, convinced that the former history professor and now Princeton University President would promote equal rights. He was to be sadly disappointed.
One of Woodrow Wilson’s first acts, upon taking office in March 1913, was to order the segregation of lunchrooms in federal buildings. Since Lincoln’s days Blacks had flocked to Washington, DC on the wings of political patronage and had worked alongside of Whites for over five decades. The president ordered an end to the hiring of new Black employees by the federal government and that retiring Blacks were to be replaced by Whites. Dismayed by these actions Monroe Trotter requested an audience with the president.
That first meeting in 1913 the calm before the storm. Monroe Trotter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and several others met with the president for about 35 minutes. Trotter and Wells-Barnett read carefully crafted statements expressing their hopes that the president would firmly support the 14th and 15th Amendments that mandated equal protection of the law and guaranteed the right of Black men to vote, principles being violated on a daily basis, especially since the 1896 Plessy Decision. The president listened cordially and promised to look into it. The delegation left, pleased to have made an impression; the Guardian touted the meeting as one of great promise. The following week Mr. Trotter sent a follow up letter reminding the president of his promise. The answer was an unambiguous silence. The Boston editor was more than disappointed; he felt betrayed. It was more than a year later when he led another delegation to meet with the chief executive but things had changed.
The president was not the same. The first Mrs. Wilson had died and left him depressed, the Great War had begun in Europe and demanded that he walk a diplomatic tight rope. Monroe Trotter boldly strode into this maelstrom. This meeting lasted 45 minutes and there was just the hint of civility. The Boston editor asked the Virginia president about the segregation of federal workers. Wilson replied that it was for the good of both races since they could not get along. Rather than accept this bit of platitude the man from Boston shot back that Blacks and Whites had worked together for over fifty years since the Civil War and that segregation was humiliating. Wilson retorted that Blacks only thought that it was humiliating because of rhetoric like Mr. Trotter’s. The editor then did the unthinkable; he interrupted the president and challenged his assertion. Voices raised they shouted back and forth becoming more heated until the president abruptly called to an end to the conference. Monroe Trotter never again entered the White House. Monroe Trotter had demonstrated that Booker T. Washington was not the only face of Black America and that he was not afraid to defy conventions and challenge even the highest authority in the land. Another time, another man and another president would yield different results: A. Philip Randolph’s encounters with several U.S. presidents was decades in the future, yet a precedent had been set.
One of the most insidious and dangerous films in the history of this nation was unleashed on the public in 1915. Initially entitled The Clansman, after the novel from which the screenplay was taken when it was first screened in Los Angeles. Renamed Birth of A Nation and it created a series of protests never before seen. Anti-racist Blacks and Whites in Boston objected to the film, which totally falsified history and portrayed Reconstruction Era Black people as fools, ignorant politicians and lascivious rapists of White women. President Wilson added to the furor by describing it as “history written on lightning.” Monroe Trotter and a committee of Black and White Bostonians tried to prevent its showing by testifying before the film Board but eventually the film was screened and opened in April 1915.
Monroe Trotter and an interracial group attempted to attend the theater but the ticket window was immediately closed. He protested and was arrested. Inside the film had begun and a Black audience member stood up during one of the dramatically humiliating scenes and threw a well aged egg which splattered on the screen emitting pent up rottenness. He was arrested. A series of stink bombs were set off making a odiferous comment on the film. In the weeks to come Trotter brought together a bi-racial group that marched about 2,000 strong to the state house for a meeting with the governor who had his attorney general draw papers challenging the film for showing “immoral and indecent” scenes. Unfortunately the courts only excised part of a chase scene and allowed the film to continue being shown.
After six months the film moved on to other locales. But by this time the damage had been done. Following a screening in Atlanta, Georgia the Ku Klux Klan was reborn at a ceremony atop nearby Stone Mountain and the nation experienced its first cross burning- an illumination of the “Christian” organization’s dedication to White supremacy.
Though unsuccessful in preventing the screening of Birth of a Nation, Monroe Trotter had energized the defenders of justice and equality and assembled the largest bi-racial effort in Boston since the abolitionists of old. He continued to print the Guardian until his death and in death has been buried and forgotten while those that he shared the stage with have continued in the limelight: WEB DuBois, Woodrow Wilson and Booker T. Washington. Yet, despite his apparent failure he inspired others and incidentally drummed up support for the nascent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Monroe Trotter was unafraid when it came to standing up for the rights of Black people. He confronted the most powerful Black man in the nation, the most powerful White man in the nation and the most powerful film ever screened to that time. His life did not turn out the way that he had dreamed but it may serve us as a wake up call. He devoted his life to uplifting a downtrodden part of humanity and serves as a model for all of us. From the grave he issues a challenge—for us to be tireless guardians of justice.