Charleston Gazette
"Equality of Races"
Is the Slogan of Negro Convention at Harper's Ferry
August 18, 1906
By Associated Press.
Harpers Ferry, W. Va., Aug. 17. - The second annual meeting of the Niagara Movement, an organization of negroes, whose purpose is to promote equality of the races, today co[n]tinued its sessio[n]s at Storr [sic] college, the feature of the proceedings being the tribute to the memory of John brown, and the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Ossawattomie. At six o'clack [sic] this morning members of the movement accompanied by a number of visitors made a pilgrimage to John Brown's fort, which is two miles from here. At the fort an address was made by Richard T. Giltner and the pilgrims marched around the fort in single file singing "John Brown's Body." This afterno[o]n addresses on John Brown were delivered by W. E. D. [sic] Dubois and Rev. Rever[d]y G. Ransom, of Boston. Ransom declared that God sent John Brown to Harper's Ferry "to become a traitor to the government in order that he might be true to the slave." He discussed the political rights of the negro. "The present occupant of ahe [sic] white house," he said, ["]has been absolutely silent on the question of the enforcement of the fifteenth amendment, while his secretary of war has admitted the violation of the constitution and he has recently in a notable address openly condoned, if not tacitly endorsed it."