Members of the Niagara movement - founded in 1909 and led by W. E. B. Du Bois - denounced Booker T Washington the advocy of non-confrontation. He was convinced that education - as in the case of his personal history - was the key to the economic and social rise of the Afro-descendant community. They called him the great Settler, since he thought that cooperation with whites was the key to overcoming the long-term dominant rascism.