Young Writers Society

I ad to write this for my final grade in English and I also entered this for a five grand scholorship. It is like, I hope I win and I hope you enjoy this essay. And I don't meant to offend anybody or anything but as long as it was fine with my English teacher then I won't do anything more.

The Niagara Movement

By Elizabeth Mathers

The Niagara Movement has had a huge impact on the 20th century and throughout society today. It’s not perfect but the people who have been affected have changed ultimately and passed the lessons they learned down their family trees, which has taught everybody valuable lessons.

Racism was more common than colds and equality was more rare than a man who could walk on water, it could happen but nobody was willing to go out on the lake to prove to the world it could happen. Segregation happened to be a negative part of society back then and a great man and leader named Booker T. Washington preached the word that his fellow man should just take what is given to them without a care; no questions asked. Another man said that there was no way he would let this happen! When superiority (Caucasians) looked down on you like some kind of insect you have to show them otherwise that is what W.E.B. Du Bois was trying to get through citizens skulls. Du Bois was like Martin Luther King Jr. because he had a dream that equality would ring throughout the skies of the USA and all the people, white, black, pink, purple, striped, would all have equal rights and treatment of kings and queens. A meeting was held in Buffalo, New York, near Niagara Falls, on July 4th, 1905. What was held here was even more a secret than Boo Bradley’s past. The organization named their protest, the largest and most willed thing any man could have done back then, the Niagara Movement. The way the majestic fall cascaded downward would never stop just as the battle for equality. The waterfall, like the fight for equality, would never stop but would fall even more powerfully into a lake of hope. At the end of the 1st year the organization only had 170 members and was poorly funded but still they marched onward, sending letters to the president, Theodore Roosevelt. By 1910 Du Bois had formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). This legacy left an impact that can still be heard throughout the present.

Today there is hardly any discrimination. Hardly. We still have our mishaps when it comes with being different people from one another, rich and poor, smart and … mentally challenged, strong or weak, pretty or plain. The Niagara Movement helped us notice that we are still people under Gods eyes and He loves us. If we were all equal in wealth, brains, bronze, beauty then there would be no discriminating. The things that were done by Du Bois helped us realize even more that we are not alike and we never will be so why can’t we at least act like? Being different isn’t bad but when you tease somebody for it and you laugh then you are one cruel person. You should switch shoes with another man (or woman’s) shoes and then see who’s laughing now. The Niagara Movement has left a lake, an empty lake, that was soon filled with the light showing us that discriminating is not right and no matter who you are (nobody is equal physically or mentally) it showed that no matter what we all deserve equal rights! It is not right to kill the mocking bird just because it appears to mock.

My feelings connect to the book by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. Racism isn’t right but it’s there. People are judged differently because they are different. They are blamed for crime uncommitted and dubbed automatic liars on sight. But there are still some good people out there who know that discriminating and being a racist isn’t right, and those are the people who end up paying the price as well. I can’t believe that the world was once split into two halves. Different neighborhoods, different water fountains, bathrooms and schools! Unbelievable! Things have cleared up and for that I am grateful. If life was like back then right at this very moment I wouldn’t have been able to see my best friend; I might not have even met her! There is significance in that ultimate protest. They named it Niagara because it would send a “current” throughout the ages. They did right. The way I see it though, they named it the Niagara Movement because racism is Niagara, and society is the lake where the racism ends! The quicker it cascades the quicker it shall end!

Look around. Do you see people? Are they all the same? The Niagara Movement and the NAACP helped forge today so seeing two different people together should be a beautiful sight.