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Biography · Civil Rights

William Monroe Trotter

1872–1934

United States

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Biography

William Monroe Trotter, sometimes just Monroe Trotter (April 7, 1872 – April 7, 1934), was an American newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts. An activist for African-American civil rights, he was an early opponent of the accommodationist race policies of Booker T. Washington, and in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian, an independent African-American newspaper he used to express that opposition. Active in protest movements for civil rights throughout the 1900s and 1910s, he also revealed some of the differences within the African-American community.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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