William Monroe Trotter

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William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), born Springfield Township, Ohio, was an African-American newspaper editor and protest leader. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 1895. In 1899, he married Geraldine Louise Pindell, whose uncle had led the fight to integrate Boston schools during the 1850s.

In 1901, Trotter and George Forbes founded the Boston Guardian. As a political activist, he led protests against segregation in the federal government, led pickets against the Birth of a Nation, and defended the Scottsboro Boys. Trotter, who had been one of the founders of the Niagara Movement in 1905, withdrew to form the National Equal Rights League.

William Monroe Trotter founded the Guardian to oppose the views of the prominent African-American leader Booker T. Washington. Trotter found Washington’s views highly offensive because they were of the accomodationist variety. Washington believed that blacks should accept segregation and the denial of voting rights, and be happy they were “free.” ^{[citation needed]}