New PBS Documentary to Explore Early Battle for Civil Rights

*PBS is set to air a documentary that chronicles the early civil rights movement.

“The Niagara Movement: The Early Battle for Civil Rights,” is an hour-long documentary by WNED PBS, that “delves deep into a national crusade that forged the civil rights landscape for the 20th century and beyond,” according to a news release.

Per the news release: “The film explores the Black elite and intellectual society at the turn of the 20th century and examines the heated national debate and conflict three Black leaders — sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, publisher William Monroe Trotter and educator and orator Booker T. Washington — had about how best to foster equality and opportunity for Black Americans.”

Watch a preview via the YouTube clip above.

W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and the early battle for civil rights

Here’s the official description:

The film spotlights the early battle behind the civil rights movement that sprang forth as a repudiation of the methods of Booker T. Washington, then the most prominent Black leader in America. The end of Reconstruction brought about oppressive Jim Crow laws and widespread lynching. Washington pandered to white society with his conciliatory philosophy of racial segregation and industrial training for Blacks instead of other advances.

Washington’s position was roundly criticized by Du Bois and by Trotter, a prominent Boston newspaper publisher, and soon a new civil rights organization emerged: the Niagara Movement. The group was formed when Du Bois and Trotter helped summon Black intellectuals, clergy, writers, newspapermen and activists from across the country to Buffalo, New York; the 29 men ultimately met across the Niagara River in Fort Erie, Canada, to evade disruption by Washington’s supporters. The organization’s key demand: full civil rights for Black Americans.

Per the news release: “The film captures the far-reaching impact of the short-lived Movement — disbanded only four years after its inception — which laid the cornerstone of the modern American civil rights movement, eventually morphing into the NAACP.”

“The influence of the Niagara Movement is evident in the protests and court challenges of the American civil rights movement as well as past and current activism,” said Tom Calderone, President & CEO of Buffalo Toronto Public Media.

“We are pleased to present this important film about such a prevailing influence on our society.”

Directed by Emmy Award-winning and two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lawrence R. Hott, “The Niagara Movement: The Early Battle for Civil Rights” premieres on Monday, November 6, at 9 p.m. on WNED PBS and Buffalo Toronto Public Media’s YouTube Channel.

The post New PBS Documentary to Explore Early Battle for Civil Rights appeared first on EURweb.

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