Racial Politics in St. Paul

Despite its provincial location and small black population, St. Paul was involved with national racial politics during 1890s and early 1900s. The first Minnesota organization that attempted to break into national politics was the American Law Enforcement League of Minnesota, founded in 1898 by Fredrick McGhee, J. Q. Adams, and lawyer William R. Morris. The League was formed in response to a particularly brutal lynching of a South Carolinian postal worker, and worked for various racial causes (36). The funds raised from “Cuba” went to the League.

The American League was soon overshadowed by the National Afro-American Council, an organization that drew together black leaders from all over the country. Their agenda initally fit within the conservative Booker T. Washington (himself a member of the Council) ideology of patience, self-help, and basic law enforcement, but it soon became more militant, which led to the first major split from Washington among black elites (37).

In 1902, the NAAC met in St. Paul. As the rhetoric of the NAAC became increasingly critical of the white establishment, Washington worried that the Council was growing too radical (38). At the St. Paul meeting, he staged a “coup” to gain more control over the organization by placing more of his allies in leadership positions. This upset and disillusioned several Council members, who soon decided to take matters into their own hands and break away from Washington’s ideology (39).

The National Afro-American Council in 1907

The Niagara Movement in 1906. Click below to see the photo in greater detail; Fred McGhee stands 8th from the left, middle row.

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The first meeting of the Niagara Movement, 1904. Fredrick McGhee stands all the way to the left in the middle row, W.E.B. DuBois is second from the right in the same row.

In 1904, the anti-Washington race leaders met for the first time in Niagara Falls, New York. The meeting was suggested by St. Paul’s Fredrick McGhee and organized by W.E.B. DuBois, who had recently published his essay critiquing Washington and calling for a more radical agenda. This group of militants called themselves the Niagara Movement, and they met annually for the next few years. They waged a difficult struggle for influence against Booker T. Washington, who still had much more political power and financial support, and the Niagara Movement never gained serious traction (40).

However, in 1908, violence in Springfield, Illinois changed the direction of national racial politics. A black man was accused of rape, which set off a series of particularly brutal lynchings and riots. The violence also had symbolic value, occurring in Abraham Lincoln’s adopted hometown. Many wealthy white progressives who had supported Booker T. Washington now realized that his agenda was perhaps not working, and W.E.B. DuBois capitalized on this opportunity. In 1909 he organized the National Negro Conference, bringing together black and white elites, including most of those involved with Niagara Movement. The Conference was extremely successful, and led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) (41). Although no one from St. Paul attended the Conference, the city had played an important role in its predecessors, the NAAC and the Niagara Movement. The 1902 St. Paul meeting of the NAAC planted the seed of anti-Washington activism, which was cultivated by Fredrick McGhee, who suggested and helped found the Niagara Movement.