With drums solemnly keeping tempo, 10,000 African-Americans participants of the July 28th “Silent Parade” made the 1917 Anti-Lynching March the first protest of its kind in the modern Civil Rights Movement. The New York Times described the protest as “one of the most quiet and orderly demonstrations ever witnessed.”
In 1905, Du Bois became the founder and secretary of the NAACP’s predecessor, the Niagara Movement. He believed that protest and agitation offered a powerful vehicle for change in response to violent manifestations of racism in America. Rather than having a legislative impact, the Movement’s main impact was ideological, leading to the forming of the NAACP.
Co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Du Bois was one of the few African Americans in the nationwide leadership of the organization at its founding. He would serve as the editor of its monthly magazine, The Crisis, as well as director of publicity and research, and a member of the board of directors. James Weldon Johnson joined the organization in 1916 as field secretary, rising through his years to be one of its most powerful officials. Johnson spent many summers in Great Barrington in a converted barn and rustic cabin on Alford Road, affectionately named Five Acres.