Today in our History – March 14, 2013 - The U.S. Post Office in Cocoa, Florida, will be designated the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Post Office.
GM – LIF – Today’s American Champion was an African-American educator, a pioneer leader of the civil rights movement, founder of the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Brevard County, Florida, and president of the state chapter of the NAACP.
He and his wife also an educator, were the victims of a bombing of their home in Mims, Florida on Christmas night 1951. He died in an ambulance on the way to a black hospital in Sanford, Florida, the county seat of Seminole County about 30 miles to the northwest. His wife died nine days later of her wounds on January 3, 1952, at the same hospital. This followed them both having been fired from teaching because of their activism, a form of economic retaliation used by the establishment.
The murder case was investigated, including by the FBI in 1951-1952, but no one was ever prosecuted. Two more investigations were conducted in the 1970s and 1990s. A state investigation and forensic work in 2005-6 resulted in naming the likely perpetrators as four Ku Klux Klan members, all long dead by that time. He was the first NAACP member and official to be assassinated for civil rights activism; the couple is the only husband and wife to be killed for the movement. He has been called the first martyr of this stage of the civil rights movement that expanded in the 1960s.
In the early 1930s, he had become a state secretary for the Florida chapter of the NAACP. Through his registration activities, he greatly increased the number of members, and he worked on issues of housing and education. He investigated lynchings, filed lawsuits against voter registration barriers and white primaries, and worked for equal pay for black teachers in public schools.
He also led the Progressive Voters League. Following a 1944 US Supreme Court ruling against white primaries, between 1944 and 1950, he succeeded in increasing the registration of black voters in Florida to 31 percent of those eligible to vote, markedly higher than in any other Southern state. REMEMBER YOUR HISTORY!
Remember – “Designating a United States Post Office in Cocoa will commemorate the Moores' legacy in a town where Mr. Moore began his service to others, the Moores left a legacy that remains close to the hearts of community members, and one that has already outlasted the lengths of their lives that were so tragically cut short.” - Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge)
Today in our History (PRESS RELEASE) – March 14, 2013 - On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, the United States Post Office located at 600 Florida Avenue in Cocoa, Florida, will be officially designated the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Post Office.
Local educators and leaders in the modern civil rights movement, Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore are remembered for their dignity, compassion, and emphasis on education. The Moores first founded the Brevard County Chapter of the NAACP in 1934, which led to a Statewide NAACP Conference in 1941. Mr. Moore served as the President of the Florida State Conference of NAACP chapters, as well as the founder and Executive Director of the Progressive Voters League. The Moores championed such issues as equality, education, and voter registration.
As the couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary on Christmas Eve, 1951, a bomb exploded beneath their home. The tragic murder sparked an even more resounding outcry for civil rights. Harry T. Moore has been called the first American civil rights’ martyr. On November 28, 2012, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2338 introduced by Congressman Posey to name this Post Office in honor of the Moores and it became public law 112-243 earlier that year.
In July 1949, four black men were accused of raping a white woman in Groveland, Florida. Ernest Thomas fled the county and was killed by a posse; the other three suspects were arrested and beaten while held in custody, forcing two to confess.
Rumors accompanied the case against a background of post-war tensions resulting from problems in absorbing veterans into jobs and American society. In Groveland, a white mob of more than 400 demanded that the sheriff, Willis V. McCall, who had hidden the prisoners to protect them, hand the prisoners over for lynching. The mob left the jail and went on a rampage, burning buildings in the black district of town. McCall asked the governor to send in the National Guard, but six days were needed to restore order.
The three young men, one 16 years of age and a minor, were found guilty by an all-white jury. The judge sentenced 16-year-old Charles Greenlee to life in prison; Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin were sentenced to death.
Executive Director of the Florida NAACP, Harry T. Moore, organized a campaign against what he saw as the wrongful convictions of the three men. With NAACP support, appeals were pursued. In April 1951, a legal team headed by Thurgood Marshall won the appeal of Shepherd and Irvin's convictions before the U.S. Supreme Court. A new trial was scheduled.
County Sheriff McCall was responsible for transporting Shepherd and Irvin to the new trial venue in November 1951. He claimed that the two men, both handcuffed, attacked him in an escape attempt. He shot them both, and Shepherd died at the scene. Irvin survived his wounds; he later claimed to NAACP and FBI officials that the sheriff shot both him and Shepherd in cold blood. Moore called for an indictment against Sheriff McCall and called on Florida Governor Fuller Warren to suspend McCall from office.
Six weeks later on Christmas night, 1951, on the Moores' 25th wedding anniversary, a bomb went off beneath the couples' house in Mims, Florida. Both were fatally injured; Moore died on the way to the black hospital in Sanford, Florida, which was about 30 miles away but was the closest to serve African Americans. His wife died from her injuries nine days later at the same hospital in Sanford.
Moore has been called the first martyr in the civil rights movement. He was the first NAACP official assassinated in the civil rights struggle. He and his wife were the first couple to be killed for civil rights.
The murders caused a national and international outcry, with protests registered at the United Nations against violence in the South. The NAACP held a huge rally in New York, and in other cities, too. In many respects, the protests over the Moores' murders were a forerunner of demonstrations during the civil rights movement. The NAACP sponsored a fundraising event at Madison Square Garden, where a song entitled "The Ballad of Harry Moore" was performed, with lyrics by the renowned poet Langston Hughes.
The State of Florida called the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to head the investigation, but the case was never solved and no one was ever prosecuted. The FBI was convinced that the Ku Klux Klan had committed the bombing and identified a number of local Klansmen as suspects, but was never able to find enough evidence to break the case.
Eventually, the FBI indicted seven Klansmen for lying about their involvement in other racial violence, hoping that the pressure of the indictments would force some of the Klansmen to crack and testify about the Moore case. But the ploy didn't work, and the indictments were eventually dismissed. The FBI eventually closed the Moore investigation in 1953.
The case has been reopened three times: in 1978 by Brevard County, in 1991-92 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and in 2005 by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist. In October 2006, three weeks before winning the Republican primary for governor, Crist held a press conference in Mims and claimed to have "resolved" the case. Although he said that his investigation found no new evidence, Crist identified four Klansmen, by then dead, as the likely perpetrators.
In the next few weeks, however, the Crist investigation was roundly criticized by Moore scholars, FDLE investigators, and newspaper editorial boards. It was largely dismissed as a political attempt to win black votes (particularly after the Crist campaign admitted to filming a campaign TV ad with Evangeline Moore, although it was never used because of the controversy.) Over the years, there were rumors that Sheriff McCall was involved in the Moore bombing, but no evidence was ever found of that.
When the Moores were killed, the risk to civil rights activists and any blacks in the South was high and continued to be so. According to a later report from the NAACP's Southern Regional Council in Atlanta, the homes of 40 black Southern families were bombed during 1951 and 1952. Some, like Harry Moore, were activists whose work exposed them to danger, but most were either people who had refused to bow to racist convention or were simply "innocent bystanders, unsuspecting victims of random white terrorism."
For example, the bombing was especially prevalent in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1950s, used by independent KKK groups to intimidate middle-class blacks who were moving into new neighborhoods. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!