"Afro-American-Council" (September 1898-1907)

Was established  in Rochester,New York,by newspaper editor Timothy Thomas Fortune and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.They envisioned the organization as a revival of the earlier National Afro-American League (NAAL),which in 1890 became the first national black organization specifically created to challenge racial segregation and discrimination.By the mid-1890s the NAAL dissolved as conditions facing Southern African American continued to worsen.The AAC proposed to take up the goals of the defunct NAAL.Like its predecessor,the AAC opposed lynching,disfranchisement of African American voters,and racial discrimination against all African American.


The immediate impetus for  the AAC was the brutal murder of African American postmaster Frazier B.Baker in Lake City,South Carolina by a white mob.In response to the incident,Timothy and Alexander called for a number of African American leaders to meet at Rochester to dedicate a statue of Frederick Douglass the city's most prominent African American resident,and to remain there to create the Afro-American Council.


With the inclusion of a broader spectrum of African American leaders including journalists,attroneys,educators,polliticians and community activists,the AAC was both more representative of the larger African American middle class and better positioned to generate fund to support its activities.Bishop Walters of Washington,D.C.,was its first president.Other officers included Ida B.Wells of Chicago as secretary and John C.Dancy of North Carolina as vice president.Representative George Henry White of North Carolina,the only African American member of Congress at the time,was later a vice president of the organization.Other prominent members included Mary Church Terrell ,W.E.B.DuBois,former Louisana governor Pinckey Benton Stewart Pinchback,Professor William Sanders Scarborough,Henry O.Flipper,the first African American West Point graduate,and Booker T.Washington,founder of Tuskegee University.


The AAC was notable in that it was one of the first African American organization to welcome women as equal members.The organization also was the the first African American group to meet regularly with a U.S. President.It met with President William McKinley each year between 1898 & 1901.The AAC lobbied for the passage of a federal anti-lynching law and raised funds to challenge the Louisiana constitution's "grandfather clause" which effectively eliminated African American voting in the state.


Despite its goal of having African Americans speak with one voice on politics (African American Republicans & Democrats joined the AAC),the organization eventually divided into pro-and anti-Booker T.Washington factions.By 1902 Booker supporters dominated the Council and three years later most of of the anti-Washington council members included W.E.B. DuBois,Ida B.Wells,Mary Church Terrell,& Bishop Walters,left to form the Niagara Movement.The AAC held its final meeting in Baltimore in 1907.


Although the AAC was torn by factionalism and achieved few successes,it laid the groundwork for independent African American political action in an era of racial segregation and helped train some of the nation's most prominent African American activists who would go on to create the NAACP.