This fresh and invigorating analysis illuminates the often-neglected story of early African American civil rights activism.
African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement tells a fascinating story, one that is too frequently marginalized. Offering the first full-length, comprehensive sociological analysis of the Niagara Movement, which existed between 1905 and 1910, the book demonstrates that, although short-lived, the movement was far from a failure. Rather, it made the need to annihilate Jim Crow and address the atrocities caused by slavery publicly visible, creating a foundation for more widely celebrated mid-20th-century achievements.
This unique study focuses on what author Angela Jones terms black publics, groups of concerned citizens-men and women, alike-who met to shift public opinion. The book explores their pivotal role in initiating the civil rights movement, specifically examining secular organizations, intellectual circles, the secular black press, black honor societies and clubs, and prestigious educational networks. All of these, Jones convincingly demonstrates, were seminal to the development of civil rights protest in the early 20th century.

Angela Jones is Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University, State University of New York (SUNY), USA. Jones's research interests include African American political thought and protest, sex work, race, gender, sexuality, feminist theory, Black feminisms, and queer methodologies and theory.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: The Niagara Movement, 1905-1910: An Overview
2: A Revisionist Approach to the History of the Civil Rights Movement
3: The Making of Black Publics
4: Black Publics and Affectual Relations: The Du Bois-Washington Debate Revisited
5: Secular Organizing and Networking in the Early Civil Rights Movement
6: The Beginnings of a New Negro
7: Niagara Women and Political Action
8: Electoral Activism and Democracy
9: Conclusion: Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement, 1887-1976
Appendix: Collective Biography of the Founders of the Niagara Movement
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index