first brown university's peter andrea's thoughts about the relationship between six drugs. alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, cocaine's and war. and harvard university history professor vincent brown chronicles the 18th century slave revolt that took place in jamaica known as taxis revolt. and later marie anna provides a history of latin america at the wisconsin book festival in madison and enjoyable tv now and over the weekend on c-span2. >> c-span as round-the-clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and it's all available on demand at cspan.org/coronavirus. once white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the us and world with interactive maps. watch on-demand anytime, unfiltered at cspan.org/coronavirus area.

>> thank you for joiningus this evening . i'm director of programs exhibitions and community partnerships or the massachusetts historical society. it's nice to see a full room even though it's a few days before thanksgiving so thanks for coming out despite the approaching holidays fiesta. if anyone is here for the first time i'd like to extend a special welcome. we are an independent nonprofit which makes massachusetts american history available and we do this through our library which provides access to our collection of 14 million manuscript pages and we do this through programsfor educators, programs for academics and through our exhibitions . we also do this through public programs and offer our remarkable diversity of programs so if you enjoy our program this evening i hope you'll consider joining if you're not already a

supporter. tonight we will hear about william munro trotter, and activist, publisher in boston at the turn of the last century although today is not a household name yellow larger-than-life presence and his height meeting with president wilson and collaborating with leaders such as w ebd boys although he didn't get along with either of them. our speaker is kerri greenidge spent years digging through archives to this discover trotter and bring him back to be seen as a figure who was ultimately traffic tragic life over the link between the vision of frederick douglass and the black radicalism in the modern era. professor greenidge received her doctorate from boston university where her specialties include african-american history and

american political history. her research explores the role of african-american literature and black political consciousness during the progressive era he is currently interim director of american study and codirects the african-american trail project at the center for the study of race and democracy she is also a good friend to nhs , she was one of our speakers are legacies of 1619 series , helped us work on planning that series and she was also the commentator on the seminar last week where she'sa frequent visitor so join me in welcoming her . [applause] >> thank you, can everyone hear me? i just want to before i start say a special thanks to the mass historical society. i did most of my research here calling through archives and taking advantage of the wonderful resources so i thank them for helping me, it's one of the many places that helped me in the earliest stages of this stuff . i'm going to start by getting a brief outline of why william trotter should be reclaimed as a foundingfather , forefather of black radical

and american radical thought and i'm going to get into a little bit of his biography and his backdrop and then i will open it up for questions . on august 21 1902, william munro trotter led a group of black lawyers and community leaders to the massachusetts state house dearea the group was there to protest the recent arrest and upcoming extradition of a north carolina field hand named monroe rogers. trotter and his group wanted governor crane to prevent roger's return to north carolina for arson . one year earlier in 1901 two black boys ages 14 and 17 were brutally lynched in greensboro while sitting in jail on vagrancy charges. it was no wonder rogers fled his home outside charlotte

for his mother's house in massachusetts after confronting his landlord over unpaid wages read a white man's barn burned down days after the confrontation and there was no guarantee the 22-year-old black man would receive a fair gender hearing. rogers fled to boston where he sought refuge and was arrested there one year after his arrival after north carolina's state commissioner alerted massachusetts of rogers whereabouts. trotter mobilized grassroots protests that prompted the meeting with governor crane. the group argued that failure by north carolina to enforce the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment as evidenced in the states unwillingness to investigate or prosecute the recent lynching of a teenage boy prevented rogersfrom receiving a fair trial . trotter used the guardian's public reclamation of antebellum radical black appellations to incite a black lead 20th-century fight againstsegregation, disenfranchisement and lynching . specifically trotter referred

to the case of george latimer in 1842 when black abolitionists led by salem native charles ramon defied state efforts to extradite latimer to virginia. in that case which occurred 30 years before trotter was born black led protests and petitions against latimer's extradition marched a shift in politics alongside latimer's eventual freedom. rallies in bedford and boston turned moral persuasion into some of the first black protests in american history on and led many northerners to reclaim massachusetts the uncompromising protector of all the oppressed who may plead to her for soccer. these protests brought much-needed attention to latimer's date and directly influence massachusetts law. abolitionists purchased latimer's freedom while this case went through the court and the reality of state compliance of federal law upheld in the previous pennsylvania case prompted creation of the new england freedom association and the passage of massachusetts personal liberty laws.

now 60 years after the latimer case, william munro trotter invoked boston's rat abolitionists pass to demand that massachusetts prevent monroe rogersextradition to north carolina . let massachusetts remember her history, the guardian proclaimed and protect those who seek refuge from southern barbarism . in proclaiming the black radical roots of abolition and justification for 20th-century demand for monroe rogers protection trotter shows the current trend that recognizes the radical nature of antebellum black activism. martin jones who went from the legal society of the united states places black demand at the center of antebellum conceptions of citizenship while kelly f carter jackson a historian outside wellesley college called for a re-examination of strategic violence in 1850s black appellations and yet in 1902, the notion that militant black abolition could be the purpose to serve

20th-century demand for radical civil rights was an act, to the era of conservatism. indeed, public black radical protests were so distasteful in 1902 the boston globe accused trotter of bringing things when he connected massachusetts responsibility to rogers with the state antebellum laws andin the latimer case . the attorney general in fact was also dismissive of and compared him to the black radical past. he rolled massachusetts and no basis for detaining rogers and booker t. washington of the tuscany institute and the most powerful black man in the country confirmed white insistence that rogers should return to north carolina for judgment. the school principal personally contacted north carolina's governor to advise him against giving in to the unreasonable demand of colored boston's tiny but vocal minority.

in response, rogers attorneys much like the radicals of old compiled a writ of habeas corpus arguing north carolina improperly indicted rogers after he fled the state. in addition to his invocation of the black radical past trotter used his ties to fellow black bostonians to organize mass resistance for rogers extradition and hired them to serve as rogers attorney. during his four years at harvard from 1891 to 1895 trotter cultivated lifelong bonds with some of the leading black intellectuals who came of age in white new england institutions . morgan for instance graduated from harvard college to harvard law school where he befriended another of trotter's friends w.e.b. dubois from the unities prize. morgan and trotter rallied their fellow students around protests against segregated barbershops in the 1890s which led to massachusetts civil rights legislation. the black man at the center

of that case william henry lewis was morgan's classmate at harvard law school. a graduate of williams college and a scholar athlete who went on to coach football at harvard, lewis's inability to get a haircut at a white owned barbershop during commencement exercises prompted lewis and trotter's first civil rights protest. as an attorney elected to the cambridge common household in the state legislature lewis answered trotter's call when the guardian editor called on boston's small yet significant class of black attorneys to defend rogers in court. unfortunately for monroe rogers, conservative racial accommodation triumphed over radical black demand for his protection . on august 30 1802 at the attorney the writ, police officers who were supposed to transport rogers from boston instead put him on a train back to north carolina. there he stood trial for arson and murder despite

having an attorney and even though the white man's barn supposedly burned failed to testify. rogers what order to confinement for a minimum of 18 years died of pneumonia four years later in 1906. and yet although rogers was not saved by trotter, the guardian or grassroots black protests is case angled a shift in local black political consciousness trotter and the guardian of performance and national movements of black political independent. rogers case occurred at the same moment many northern black communities questioned blind loyalty to the coparty of lincoln. although president theodore roosevelt urged progressive accolades and white southern violence scored for inviting booker washington to die, trotter pointed out the gop had done little for the colored people since the collapse of radical oreconstruction over 20 years before.

rather than enforce the 15th amendment of the constitution coto establish equal protection under federal law and prevent a denial of the franchise on the basis of race, color and previous condition of servitude roosevelt led mckinley and arthur before him focused on building lily white republican support in the south. the result trotter argued was a republican party that bore little resemblance to the consent of the governed and radicalism of senator charles sumner and thaddeus stevens. the only way to prevent cases like rogers from happening again was for northern black voters to recognize their power to swing local elections from any party or candidate whobetrayed black demand . as the guardian told peters, the negro has a right to accept the national government in the hands of the republican party or for republicans to home that negro has been loyal, the negro has a right to accept that his party will take positive steps toenforce the

constitution . so who was william munro trotter? why he was he alone, unapologetically persistently and radically against racial conservatism and white apathy in the face of radical reconstruction betrayal at the turn of the last century. most importantly how do his life and times demand reconceptualization of black radical politics, black political independence and possibilities of black community activism during the period that historians referred to as the long nadir at the turn of the last century. william munro trotter was born in 1872, the year that the role republicans broke from their radical colleagues who opposed federal reinforcement of reconstruction. he died exactly 62 years later as democratic president franklin d roosevelt presided an administration that

changed the relationship to federal policy and the american economy brooks ended as he was between the failed promise of reconstruction and racial limitations of new deal o liberalism, trotter's life represents the radical possibilities of northern black politics rooted in antebellum militant abolition . trotter's life we conceptualize is black radicalism is a tradition that thrives in existence in the early dominant white northeast as well as the unforgettably black rural south. like all race men and women of his generation trotter's politics were nurtured by his parents experience of enslavement and quasi-in the decades prior to the civil war. his father that you see here was born in slate in mississippi, a state to ohio and climbed the lives of the 55th massachusetts regiment become one of five black men and a lieutenant in the union army. his mother virginia itemizes trotter was born free in

charlottesville virginia. with free and enslaved people of color with ties to thomas jefferson's monticello both trotter and his younger sister seen here what 1874 elizabeth saturday morning 1883 were born after their maternal grandfather far farm in chillicothe ohio, the site of convergence between black enslavement and freedom along with former slaves called river jordan. the relationship between early 20th century black radicalism reand munro trotter's family and kinship ties to antebellum radical adolescent is was an ever evolving pit political symbiosis. trotter's childhood among black activists and political independence in ohio and massachusetts shaped his adult demands that black communities dictate, agitate as he said or racial justice and civil rights. likewise trotter's faith black lab radical tradition could quote, disorder the current colonial order, take

family and kinship ties facilitated the spread of a radical black politics rooted in the militant black abolition movement of the 1840s and 1850s. life over river jordan provided for what gla referred to as black freedom dreams. in june 17, 1987 ordinance forbade slavery north of the mississippi river which attracted members of what ira berlin called african-americans coming generations these black self-sufficient farming settlements to the western appalachian mountains cincinnati attracted former slaves and free people from eastern virginia. as authoritarian joe william trotter and other scholars have shown these black people were free aor quasi free children and dissented women like slaveholding men was out of virginia after many policies and black cloth altered the terms of black freedom in the early republic . isaacs, 1809 to 1874,

virginia trotter's father and william and wrote letters grandfather was one of these children. were free to a jewish merchant named david isaacs, and isaacs mixed-race wife named nancy west, tucker isaacson and his siblings on the substantial property in charlottesville at their father left to their mother before he died isaacs also had family in kinship ties to the comings and faucets of monticello red isaac right elizabeth fossett was the daughter of joseph gifford foster, blacksmith respectively monticello. while thomas jefferson's will read joseph fosse, his wife and children including tucker isaacs future wife and elizabeth william trotter's grandmother remained in slate area after tucker and and elizabeth married in the 1830s continue to live in charlottesville with nancy west various skin even ask tucker save money to purchase his wife, five siblings and various family members area

virginia isaacs was their fourth child and youngest daughter born in charlottesville but brought up between slave and royal after tucker purchasedhis farm in ohio in 1848 . she often told her son trotter about the muskets the siblings head as they traveled in wagons at night to nancy webb various skin in charlottesville. she also told monroe about her and, wife of sally having son eventually passed into wisconsin whiteness after living with tucker isaacs in chillicothe.the point is that the impact of this family and cultural memory, a black-market musket and save slave refuge in an all-black world to virginia's enslavement and while freedom, his consciousness meant the power of black militancy in the face of violence was not abstract to trotter. he spent every summer at his grandfather tucker isaacs farm where one of the isaacs

family muskets was proudly displayed over the fireplace and where cousins were ministers and teachers in nearby cincinnati. when trotter adopted the language of radical black self-defense, when he urged for instance after world war ii black soldiers do like their forefathers of old, arm yourself andchildren in the name of all humanity . when he said these things was not speaking rhetorically. militant black self-defense and sustained and nurtured multiple generations of family and could he believed claim for the colored people all the systems here and abroad would deny. this is an image of the isaacs family farm in ohio. in 1994. if trotter's family history and absorption of the black radical path provided him with the necessary foundation for radical legal thought, then boston provided him with

the necessary city in which to exercise that thought. trotter was born in 1872 often was considered a neck of the negro. a city in which poverty holding black men and then voting since the 1780s. where the public schools were desegregated in 1855 and where a highly literate politically savvy and enter the black community or colored as they prefer to call themselves lead free black resistance of slavery. as the son of ablack elite champion and ultimately benefited from this antebellum radicalism , monroe trotter absorbed from an early age lord byron quote abolitionists adopted at their mantra. those who would be free themselves must spread the blow. thus the faith in black communities in his blackness generally, trotter's racial politics rejected the booker t. washington open up a separate as the finger and white progressive insistence that the negro problem was confined to the south and negroes themselves were non-redemption.

although trotter knows his racial politics were nurtured and supported by the tightening at boston community in which he came of age , the reality of life in the racial trotter's challenge to conservative racial spokesman in the white progressive in support of their work. more than any other african-american born the years after the civil war trotter's disruptive understanding of the significant role african-americans outside of the jim crow south played in black political and cultural history, the turn of the last century. while recent scholars have broadened the historical inquiry into civil rights struggle as more than a southern or 20th century , serious study of northern african-americans relationship to an resistance against the federal government the trail of radical reconstruction remains scarce in the boston suppose it racial exceptionalism, the flight of radical abolition and desegregated education 20th

century aggregation, all these things that supposedly made boston racially exceptional often hinges on historical paradigms that don't quite fit people and transmits boston'spath . disenfranchisement did not exist on the same scale in massachusetts and did in other northern states . nor did the anti-black violence that precipitated it. black men like james monroe trotter serving local and federal government across the state and were frequently elected members by majority white sisters up until redistricting in the 20th h century white supremacy then look and felt different in boston and it did in other cities butthis did not mean it did not exist . william monroe trotter's demand for federal enforcement of the reconstruction amendments and his intolerance for immersive narrative the colored people were somehow to blame for america's negro problem illustrates this fact. boston might have been a neck of the negro, trotter argued but the negro was rapidly losing his citizenship rights

to powerful political forces over which he had little control. so trotter and boston supporters believe that black people and the power to seize control over their racial identity to about box and through public protests. african-americans under cost violent assault in the years following reconstruction selects not control southern white supremacist or their northern politics but they could fight with all by there might against any and all attempts to segregate, this franchise the value black lives. trotter launched the earliest and most auto compromising by against black disenfranchisement and lynching espoused by booker washington and racial conservatives although his criticisms were often personal andunforgiving , trotter was revolutionary in his insistence that activism, not accommodation was the onlyroute to racial justice and booker t. washington the most famous african-american

in the world at the time good and must be challenged . during the guardian's first decade of circulation william monroe trotter and colored boston became synonymous with negromilitancy. a reputation that relied on the political mobilization of the genteel poor , the majority of african descended people in boston who rejected the washington due boy dialectic already developing in progressive america's racial consciousness. the genteel poor alienated from men and women who claimed to represent the interests ofthe negro understood the devastation wrought by reconstructions blood he collapsed , southern disenfranchisement and violent desegregation. the guardian spoke to these people and the people in turn helped transform the guardian into a political institution through which the colored people themselves with trotter as their coach defined racial justice and civil rights on their own radical terms. munro trotter used the guardian as a grassroots organizing tool long before

the term of consciousness. this grassroots political organization created a movement toward political independence affected boston's political landscape and inspired what white political commentators called the new england example. black voters exercising their dissatisfaction with the national gop by voting for democrats on a populist and local level. additionally trotter's insistence that black radicals interrogate rather than accept as inevitable the existing american party system provides a blueprint for 21st-century activists who argue that our two party political system is fundamentally ill-equipped to adjust the economic and social needs of the people. gaas one of the first black editors to organize northern black political nonpartisanship as a sustainable and legislatively significant civil rights strategy, trotter fueled a movement that borrowed heavily from the negro

movements of his father's generation. and monroe's hands, spread far wider and had a far greater impact than anything his father produced. as his personal life suffered from a loss of income on my ended his real estate business and the high cost of running the guardian monroe trotter emerged as a unique political voice across the black north. although never elected office ultimately neverwanted , his movements with massachusetts racial politics for the left and the rest of the country while continuing to mobilize northerners who were increasingly outraged impotence of their professed brokenness. finally a time when political pundits of all stripes in2019 the age of american blackness , in which visions of language, socioeconomic status and the city publication assumptions about african-american political cohesion, my argues that the guardian's notion of colored people have been and continue to be a source of political strength, not weakness. after all, monroe trotter inculcated his bostonians

with new negro consciousness based on black led civil rights protests and political independence . he created an alliance with caribbean born radicals across new york. this alliance went to the ewliberty league congress, the only civil rights organization to meet during world war i and the one chiefly responsible for introducing leonardo and a single northerncongress . far from a leader in decline william monroe trotter 's presentation of the demands onof the colored people impaired its support for red in harlem, played civil rights with legislative conscience in dc for the first time since reconstruction. although the diurnal did not pass trotter radical liberty y and his demand for colored world democracy are an international scale new negro radicalism the center of the wilson administration's over a newworld order .

the last 15 years of trotter life then provide a glimpse into the transnational applications of the editors civil rights. far from the conservative provincial outlier of the white race and working-class rebellion evicted interventional accounts of red summer and it's in the aftermath , colored boston as they call themselves was a hotbed of new negro internationalism , committed to the often conflicting streams of nationalism , communism and socialism within black politics . and yet by the primetime united april 1934, william monroe trotter and dunmore radicalize radical politics in boston and across the country any other populist leader of his generation read a try. is not that he failed the people whose rights he so passionately aligned with his own interests could so callously forget him. neither black boston orracial politics generally would be the same following trotter's death . still the guardian's laid the groundwork for a grassroots political consciousness informed local strategies in the 20th century civil rights movement . trotter's life is the story of america's shift on a

general acceptance of black economic political and racial sub mediation a radical demand for racial justice, lead and decided my black people themselves. trotter's vision remains unfulfilled today in his assignment as life work is not finished and there are lessons let you from his imperfect yet sincere battle for racial justice. >> i will not open it up for questions . >> did he commit suicide or as some people say was? >> all the evidence i have found including that certificate and letters from his sister after he died indicate he committed suicide and that how i ". i began that way so it's late arrest so that it's not the focus of the book.

this looks like a vague threat from the beginning. ithink that as back then as today there's stigma surrounding suicide and mental health issues . but when he was discovered, his sister initially with a letter, his sister geraldine trotter with him wrote a letter to one of their colleagues in dc saying he finally got rid he finally jumps. and then when the press responded in a way that i do not think for my research he probably expected, she then started saying that he did not jump himself. that he slipped in ice. that it was suspicious but when he died, at the moment he died on april 7, 1934, all of his friends including his sister's immediately response was that he had killed himself and in 1934, it was a moment when he was told the guardian was bankrupt. so he jumps on an early saturday morning, told the guardian he bankrupt the monday before. he's also told thatbecause

the guardian had collapsed , he has nowhere to live basically and had to be out by the end of the month. that point was being treated for what was called nervous exhaustion. and had a hot pacing and by the last year of his life talking to himself and the people were very concerned that all this is to say that part of the i think the unwillingness of many people to say that he committed suicide is the stigma that surrounds both all communities, resounding suicide and mentalhealth communities but all evidence points to the fact that he committed suicide . >>. [inaudible] he is forth from the right. sorry, forth from the front row. he's the one in the circle, yes.

that is actually his mother. and his wife is next to her. the lighter skinned woman in the hat area his picture from the hubert harrison papers in columbia university, hubert harrison was a radical acaribbean migrant in harlem. a lot of images and a lot of the more recent research on trotter and particularly the last years of his life comes from that collection and one of the things i would dream of his paying an undergraduate student to research. i had my suspicions but except for those three whoare circled those are the only three we know who they are . yes. >> what was the response of william trotter to the guardian? >> garvey was inspired by trotter and i go through this in the paper area garvey wrote when trotter died, garvey wrote a letter that

was published both in the negro world and kind of as a punching comment on garvey is in the crisis that trotter was the most noble, what did he call it? the most noble of all the race. the race could have afforded to lose many other leaders area we cannot afford to lose william monroe trotter garvey ne, one of the things he would do to inspire members of the cross the african diaspora is to donate money, that he took the ship that trotter took to paris read that ship, he turned into the blackstar line so the ship that trotter used and he used that as a selling point to the black public . an image in 1919 of an activist named henrietta ncvincent davis holding a rally in kingston jamaica to get people to support garvey , when people are giving money

he holds up a copy of the guardian and he says you have to give money because this is trotter's book and he then writes that this would inspire people to give money so he had a relationship with garvey. he did not agree with gardens back to africa movement or with garvey's black nationalist movement in the way that garvey expressed it. he also was very hurt by the fact that garvey, much like himself i would argue that these contentious relationships with members of black radical left. people like demo brakes and herbert harrison so they had a falling out personally but garvey was one of the ones who continued topublish . pieces of the guardian in the negro world after trotter died and before he died so they had this, he was somebody who had a lot of respect in that circle area. >> two questions, one was one

third if i heard correctly, did you say booker t. washington broke carolina supports? >> the second question is as i understand it the black population of boston was quite small in this era. so i literally learned the other day philadelphia i think was the largest around the country, 40,000 or so so how did black communities and other parts of the country review the sort of activity usthat happened here in boston? inconsiderate to radical? >> excellent questing, one of the city trotter i argue in the book that was one of his gifts was his ability to go into places, rally of many members of this elite group of blacks men who had graduated from harvard or brown or new england so he knew them all.

he was during his time at harvard he was known as the leader of this cohort that surrounded w.e.b. dubois and william lewis and many of those graduates of harvard or amherst or dartmouth, they might be the only black person on their campus but they would coming to boston and hang out with trotter and one of the things that trotter felt betrayed was that many members of that class once they graduated disavowed their earlier activism. for the sake of their careers and so one of the things i argue in the book is that the way he was able to get into these communities and he did live in it he would call out members of his former cohort now were leaders in these communities so the leader of the ame church in pennsylvania in the early 20th century. the leader of a church in rural new york, who then became a trotter convert who had gone to and different theological seminary and disavowed his activism

trotter called him out literally in the church and said you were the person who protested in 1893, why are you protesting now and hehad the mayor: . describe him to the guardian so one of the things i argue is that shamelessness waspart of his strength . and his downfall. intense thought of all the time. but he definitely, the guardian in the book know in terms of circulation numbers and certainly circulation of newspapers through the back press are hard to come by because they were not covered by the press but we know that the numbers that we can substantiate is about at its height 3000 to 4000 newspapers per week so that's very small numbers. one of the things we know is that what was happening was that people were taking pieces of the guardian and putting them in their newspapers, for black newspapers where they live so oklahoma, basically had its own saver called the scimitar, all of that was the guardian guardian, repackaged

and sold it there and part of trotter's bad business and was he wasn't charging people . openness, going to oklahoma. his wife is saying yes but they're taking your words. basically they're gettingthe product and you're not so to answer your question , definitely . one of the things i put in the book is this notion by about 1903 black boston was seen as a radical place and in fact independent the major progressive magazine had a whole article on the boston negro in 1904 and it basically argued health teams to be behaving, what's wrong with boston and they have a whole baker who was a newspaperman, they have a small article on boston and swhy is it that this community seems so dissatisfied. what is wrong improves when you give black people the boat is still upset all this stuff that happens so boston had that reputation. one of the tragedies of trotter's life is that the great migration that had this

huge effect on other cities. philadelphia,new york city, chicago. boston didn't have the same effect . it's not that black people from the great migration did not come to boston because they did compared to new york and philadelphia, the black boston. by 1930s is still relatively small. and so he doesn't catch way of our other cities look during this time boston doesn't have that weight. so one of the argument in the book is that historians have to reevaluate how we look at what's the great migration to certain citiesso in boston , yes you get migration from the south but it's not nearly as much as in new york so then that of course is the focus shifts to new york even though it was still going on in boston. the governor gave the case at your point of view, this was something that the booker t. washingtonpaper . chronicled very well in terms of lewis carmen who was the editor. shout out to him, his

archival work is finding all the newspaper incidence of washington talking to white governors and leaders in the south. trotter, pointing out that he was having this relationship even though the public and washington's denied. trotter right after the monroe rogers incident publishes the letter that washington had with governor aycock was the governor of north carolinatelling him it's okay, he can go back to the south . we all know you are a friend of black people, all this type of thing so trotter was very good at shaming his former colleagues who were like the black elite. not very good at maintaining good personal relationships with them. and going kind of into their territory as they would say and riling up in his words the community and then leaving and the community itself is really riled up and then the people in that community, black leaders have to respond . yes.

click you say a few things about his relationship the niagara movement. >>. >> they were at harvard at the same time, he was a graduate student. he had a crush on and was willing generally indelible became his wife. and they would use this dance of berlin which was a dance so apparently they use to dance together and trotter said he would be into him and would push the boys aside, these letters you write are that here that trotter comes againand steals so he marries fodder . inthey remained close in terms of friendship with one another so trotter when he came to boston often stayed in father's house in dorchester. and when they are getting together to decide on this

niagaramovement, that conversation takes place in father's house in dorchester . and initially there allied through this niagara movement. people found it and trotter actually do boys refer to him as john the baptist of the niagara movement. he's the one who gets all these people to come to boston and they were going to found this new movement but the problem is once the movement gets started , and make around all of these talented members to be a member of it , trotter got mad because clemens morgan his former friend, the lawyer in the monroe rogers case the boys put him in charge of the niagara movement in boston trotter said this is his one and basically that advertises the niagara movement in boston, one of the more shameful aspects of his life . it's one of the moments i argue in the book really changes the way that he drives, try to have relationships with people even though you don't always succeed because after that moment niagara movement classes do boy parties we

could have been a good movement, trotter's the one who selfishly wanted to be in charge. it wasn't in charge and so basically has no organization but the boys at a strange relationship with fodder and i point out that the two men had known each other since they were in the early 20 oh we should think of how long that relationship was. they were not close after the niagara movement fell. they were particularly not close after trotter went to paris and w.e.b. dubois was not in the moment yet and was arguing black people need to support the government in world war i. but after trotter's death, dubois was the first one who basically stopped production on the crisis . the story he was working on the side and put fodder on the cover. and had this beautiful obituary for trotter basically arguing that it was a sign that the activists of

old were being forgotten. by thisgeneration , that what was said was that what trotter was forsaking his own city. these beautiful words and then never mentioned him again publicly but kind of like this relationship that they had that was kind of like he might look at it as a brother, limiting you that you don't want and in other years you really like and you support so they had type of relationship. >> i wonder if you could say something about people . [inaudible] >> this was all primary source material so the first place i started was the guardian newspaper . i readevery single issue that survive . the guardian , the public library, congregational

library on theindustry . then, but is on this archive called the african-american newspaper archive but those are really only three constant places where you can get them and it's really poorly preserved and then you hand prints . but most of that, then from there i went to the black newspaper generally and found that they were taking guardian we will say the guardian by william monroe trotter we're calling the scimitar area going into those negroes and look at it through there. i then look a lot personal papers. the dubois papers of course, hubert harrison papers at columbia and i looked at moreland sting on library at howard university which had all these letters. sort of a fabulous archive of african-american history in dc. the good thing about trotter is he doesn't write anything about himself. he doesn't write a biography but he has all these letters from people that he is tters

sending to people over the years that are saved in these archives and most of the time this is because trotter hasn't gotten the attention he could get in the economy, you have to go through the papers and in other words if you go into papers you're not going to find letters to trotter . sometimes you will but most of the time you're tnot going to so it's peeling back his associates and looking at his associates papers. the other good source was here at the nhs where the henry lodge papers, lodge was an end of trotter but also the one political ironically ally trotter had for all time so there's all these letters between lodge and the black community of boston, the honey fits papers, that family, honey this was somebody who believed that he could not become or make his way to the political matter in boston unless he courted the black vote so there's a lot of it on honey fits in

thegeneral papers . going to this rally in the north end, i have to make sure this is covered inthe guardian because if it's not in black people are going to show up and we will lose by 200 votes . so it's kind of amazing stuff and a lot of these awards in massachusetts, how people voted and where they voted and what was the population of the district in which they live. so yes, it was all primary source stuff . [applause] >> coming up here on c-span2, journalist lawrence weschler on the lake neurologist oliver sacks and later mathematician eugenia cheng explores the limits of logic. tonight on the communicators,

mark randolph, cofounder of netflix and author of the book that will never work shared his experiences during the online streaming service. >> on april 4, 1998 the cto said hit a few keys and we rely and it didn't take long and we got that first dating and we cheered and we began opening bottles of champagne and two or threeminutes later , three more quarters. it was so excited and we got two more orders and all the excitement, we kind of lost track of things until someone noticed that it's been a while since the bell has rung. and we were, are we unplugged? is there a problem? it turned out in the first 15 minutes of being online we crashed all our servers. >> mark randolph tonight at 8 pm eastern on the communicators on c-span2 . >> you're watching a special edition of the book tv airing during the week while members

of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic area tonight global history, first round universities peter andrea's thoughts about the relationship between six drugs, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, amphetamines, cocaine and war and then harvard university history professor vincent brown chronicles the 18th century slave revolt that took place in jamaica known as tachy's revolt. and latermarie are on our provides a history of latin america at the wisconsin book festival in madison . enjoy book tv now and over the weekend on c-span2. >> the president from public affairs, available now in paperback and e-book. presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. and features perspectives