"William Monroe Trotter" (April 7, 1872- April 7,1934)

A newspaper editor and civil rights activist,was born in 1872 in Chillicothe, Ohio, the Son of

James Monroe Trotter and Virginia Isaac's Trotter.Raised in a well-to-do white Boston neighborhood, he absorbed the militant integrations of his politically active father, a tradition that on throughout his own life.Elected president of his senior class by his white high school classmates William worked briefly as a clerk and entered Harvard College in the Fall of 1891. He graduated magna cum laude in June 1895,and moved easily into Boston's elite black society.By In June 1899 he married Geraldine Louise Pindell.That same year he opened his own real estate firm.By the turn of the century,William and his peers were deeply concerned about worsening race relations in the South and signs of growing racial antagonism in the North.In March 1901 he helped form the Boston Literary and Historical Association,which fostered intellectual debate among prosperous African American; he also joined the more politically active Massachusetts Racial Protective Association (MRPA).These organizations served as early forums for his denunciation of the virtually undisputed accommodations leadership of Booker T. Washington.In  contrast to Booker, William defended liberal arts education for black people, championed electoral participation as means of securing basics rights, and counseled agitation on behalf of racial justice.With fellow MRPA member his life work:the uncompromising advocacy of civil and political equality for African Americans, through the pages of the Guardian.The Guardian newspaper, which began weekly publication in November 1901,offered news and analysis of the African-American condition.At the same time, it served as a base for independent political organizing led by William himself.The "Trotterities" not only vilified their enemies in the pages of the Guardian,they also resorted to direct confrontation. On several occasions, William and his supporters attempted (without success) to wrest control of the Afro-American Council from the pro-Booker T. Washington camp.More effective was their disruption of a speech Booker himself was scheduled to deliver in July 1903.Amid the fracas, William delivered a litany of accusations and demanded of Booker, "Are the rope and the torch all the race is to get under your leadership?"He served a month in jail for his role in what was dubbed the "Boston Riot." After the incident, William founded the Boston Suffrage League and the New England Suffrage League,through which he called for federal anti-lynching legislation, enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment, and the end of racial segregation.His editorial belligerence and unorthodox tactics were often disapproved of, many nonetheless respected his unswerving commitment to the cause of racial equality.They rose to William defense in the aftermath of "riot" when Booker launched a malicious campaign-including surveillance, treats of libel,and the secret financing of competing publications-to intimidate and silenced the Guardian and its editor.In this sense, William actions, and Booker heavy-handed efforts to squelch them, helped crystallize the growing disaffection with Booker into an organizational alternative.William was able to forge a successful, if temporary, alliance with W.E.B. Du Bois and other proponents of racial integration, and he participated in founding the Niagara Movement in 1905.William political independence and confrontational style went beyond the fight against Booker T. Washington,he clashed repeatedly with the Niagara Movement over questions of personality and leadership, and he resolved the wage the fight for racial justice under the austional Equal Rights League (NERL;originally founded as the Negro-American Political League in April 1908).He attended the founding convention of the NAACP in May, 1909, he kept his distance from the white-dominated association. Relations between NERL and the NAACP remained cool over the years,with occasional instances of cooperation to achieve common goals.His zeal for direct action remained undiminished through the 1910s and 1920s. In a much-celebrated audience with Woodrow Wilson in 1914, William challenged the president's candor as insolent and offensive, ordered the meeting to a close. The following year, he led public protests against the showing of the film The Birth of a Nation;as a result of his renewed efforts in 1921,the movie was banned in Boston. In early 1919, denied a passport to travel to the Paris Peace Conference, he made his way to France disguised as a ship's cook, hoping to ensure that the Treaty of Versailles contained guarantees of racial equality;unable to influence the proceedings, he later testified against the treaty before the U.S. Congress. In 1926 William again visited the White House to make the case against segregation in the federal government, this time before President Coolidge.The Guardian, however,remained the primary outlet for his political convictions. Dependent largely on the contributions of black subscribers, the paper was often on shaky financial ground. It not only absorbed his time and energy, it also drained assets: Having abandoned the real estate business early in order to devote himself entirely to the Guardian, he gradually sold off his property to keep the enterprise afloat. By 1920, with him standing as a national figure eclipsed by both both the NAACP and the Garvey movement, publication of the Guardian became even more difficult to sustain.Over the years, the impassioned advocacy of militant integrationism remained the hallmark of William Guardian. Back in 1908, William rather than supporting the black community creation of its own hospital, had called for integration of Boston's medical training facilities.He had insisted that short-term benefits could not outweight the "far more ultimate harm causing the Jim Crow lines to be drawn about us." He was driven by that philosophy throughout his life, even in the face of opposition from other African Americans.William either fell or jumped to his death from the roof of his apartment building.