The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was a political and humanitarian activist group that sought to promote reform of the Congo Free State, a private territory in Central Africa under the absolute sovereignty of King Leopold II. Active from 1904 to 1913, the association formed in opposition to the institutionalised practices of Congo Free State's 'rubber policy', which encouraged the need to minimise expenditure and maximise profit with no political constraints – fostering a system of coercion and terror unparalleled in contemporary colonial Africa. The group carried out a global publicity campaign across the Western world, using a range of strategies including displays of atrocity photographs; public seminars; mass rallies; celebrity endorsements; and extensive press coverage to lobby the Great Powers into pressuring reform in the Congo. The association partially achieved its aims in 1908 with the Belgian government's annexation of the Congo Free State and continued to promote reform until disbanding in 1913. Origins: E. D. Morel and the Casement Report In the mid-1890s Edmund Dene Morel was working for Elder Dempster as a shipping clerk based in Antwerp, when he noticed discrepancies between public and private accounts given for the import and export figures relating to shipping from the Congo. Morel deduced from the steady export of firearms and cartridge, against the disproportionate mass imports in rubber, ivory and other lucrative commodities, that no commercial transaction was taking place. He concluded that the use of force was the only explanation: the consistency of the exchange could only be supported by a state-led system of mass exploitation. Resigning from his role in 1901, Morel turned to journalism to investigate and raise awareness about the activities of the Congo Free State authorities, establishing his own journal in early 1903 – the West African Mail. Morel's publications drew from the direct reports and experiences of the missionary community who had for years worked in the Congo, as well as travellers from the region and whistleblowers and former Congo Free States and concession company agents who supplied him with detailed reports and corroborating evidence of widespread atrocities. Morel was a gifted public speaker and prolific writer, giving speeches and publishing articles in other newspapers – foreign and domestic – as well as circulating pamphlets and writing several meticulously researched books on the Congo and Leopold's system. Nathan Alexander has observed that Morel's impassioned campaigning stemmed largely from his belief that the Congo Free