Trotter (William Monroe) is born near Chillicothe, Ohio.

The son of James Monroe and Virginia (Isaacs), William Monroe Trotter moves to Boston with his family, grows up at 107 Kendall Street, attends Hyde Park High School, and graduates from Harvard College in 1895,* where he also receives a master’s degree. After joining his father’s real estate business, he marries Geraldine Pindell in 1899,* and co-founds the Boston Guardian in 1901.* One of Boston’s leading and most strident civil rights leaders, Trotter engages in public confrontations with Booker T. Washington in 1903* and President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.* He dies in Boston on April 7, 1934,* and is buried at Fairview Cemetery. W.E.B. Du Bois later calls Trotter, “A man of historic proportions and probably one of the most selfless of Negro leaders during all of our American history.”