William Monroe Trotter, the most famous of known descendants of
Monticello's enslaved families, was the son of Virginia Isaacs
and James Monroe Trotter. He graduated magna cum laude from
Harvard, which he viewed as the exemplar of “real democracy.”
But his world began to contract, as the Jim Crow line moved
inexorably up from the south. He gave up a lucrative real estate
business to start a newspaper, the Boston Guardian, and raised
his voice against the accommodationist principles of Booker T.
Washington. In 1905 he and W. E. B. Du Bois took the lead in
founding the Niagara Movement, the precursor of the NAACP. In
his long, militant and uncompromising fight for "full equality
in all things governmental, political, civil and judicial,"
Trotter presented petitions, led picketing and demonstrations,
and confronted presidents in the White House. His last national
effort was described at the time as a movement for "the
fulfillment of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence."
"Whatever you feel strongly ab