The National Afro-American League was formed on January 25, 1890, by
Timothy Thomas Fortune
Timothy Thomas Fortune (October 3, 1856June 2, 1928) was an orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor and publisher. He was the highly influential editor of the nation's leading black newspaper ''The New York Age'' and was the leadin ...
.
Preceding the foundation of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP), the organization dedicated itself to racial solidarity and self-help.
In September 1898, Fortune presided at a meeting in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
, called by
A.M.E. Zion Bishop
Alexander Walters
Bishop Alexander Walters (August 1, 1858 – February 2, 1917) was an American clergyman and noted civil rights leader. Born a slave in Bardstown, Kentucky, just before the Civil War, he rose to become a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal ...
, for the purpose of rejuvenating the League. The new organization, named the
National Afro-American Council
The National Afro-American Council was the first nationwide civil rights organization in the United States, created in 1898 in Rochester, New York. Before its dissolution a decade later, the Council provided both the first national arena for disc ...
, existed until about 1908. Walters was the first president of the council, while Fortune was the first chairman of the executive committee.
Many who originally supported the League and later, the council, eventually started donating to the NAACP, which later became one of the most powerful anti-
segregation Segregation may refer to:
Separation of people
* Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space
* School segregation
* Housing segregation
* Racial segregation, separation of humans ...
groups.
See also
*
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
*
Niagara Movement
The Niagara Movement (NM) was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group of activists—many of whom were among the vanguard of African-American lawyers in the United States—led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. ...
References
Sources
* Alexander, Shawn Leigh. An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011
African Americans' rights organizations
Organizations established in 1890
Organizations disestablished in 1893
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