Amzie Moore
Encyclopedia
Amzie Moore was an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

, civil rights leader
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

, and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 in the Mississippi Delta.

Early life

Moore was born on the Wilkin plantation near the Grenada
Grenada County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 23,263 people, 8,820 households, and 6,297 families residing in the county. The population density was 55 people per square mile . There were 9,973 housing units at an average density of 24 per square mile...

 and Carroll County
Carroll County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 10,769 people, 4,071 households, and 3,069 families residing in the county. The population density was 17 people per square mile . There were 4,888 housing units at an average density of 8 per square mile...

 lines. Proud of his family roots, Moore liked to tell about his grandfather, a slave who lived to be 104: “He couldn't read or write, yet he accumulated more than a section of land and had [about] … twenty thousand dollars … saved when he died."

Left on his own at fourteen after his mother died in 1925, Moore completed high school but could not realize his dream of a college education. Through the rest of his life, however, he worked hard to educate himself.

Even before leaving Mississippi to fight in the war, Moore was involved in race relations, once organizing a successful rally of 10,000 blacks in his hometown. He served over three and a half years in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 including time overseas before returning to his job at the U. S. Post Office where he had worked since 1935.

After the war, Moore opened a gas station, beauty shop, and grocery store on Highway 61 in Cleveland, Mississippi
Cleveland, Mississippi
Cleveland is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 12,334 as of the 2010 census.Cleveland has a fairly large commercial economy, with numerous restaurants, stores, and services along U.S. Highway 61...

. His business also served as headquarters for the area’s civil rights efforts
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

.

Regional Council of Negro Leadership

Beginning in 1951, Moore, Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry was an American civil rights leader, politician, and head of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which tried to seat their delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.-Early life:Henry was born in Dublin,...

 and Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...

 worked with Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a self-made entrepreneur, fraternal organization leader, and surgeon, to build the Regional Council of Negro Leadership
Regional Council of Negro Leadership
The Regional Council of Negro Leadership was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership...

 (RCNL). The RCNL sought to encourage entrepreneurship, self-help, and civil rights in the Delta. He participated in the RCNL's campaign to boycott gas stations that failed to provide restrooms for blacks. His gas station was one of the few that allowed blacks to use restrooms between Memphis and Vicksburg. During this period, Moore also belonged to the United Order of Friendship, a fraternal society headed by Howard to provide low-cost medical care to blacks.

In August 1955, as word first got out that Emmett Till
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married...

 was missing, Evers and Moore quickly became involved, disguising themselves as cotton pickers and going into the cotton fields searching for anything that would help find the young Delta
Mississippi River Delta
The Mississippi River Delta is the modern area of land built up by alluvium deposited by the Mississippi River as it slows down and enters the Gulf of Mexico...

 visitor. Moore asserted, after collecting stories first hand from the field laborers, that whites had murdered thousands of blacks over the years and thrown their bodies thrown into the region’s swamps, rivers, and bayous.

Other Civil Rights Movement activism

Moore conceived of the voter registration
Voter registration
Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive.-Centralized/compulsory vs...

 campaign that was later the centerpiece of Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...

 in 1964. The local leader welcomed outside help including SNCC organizer Robert Parris Moses
Robert Parris Moses
Robert Parris Moses is an American, Harvard-trained educator who was a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and later founded the nationwide U.S. Algebra project.-Biography:...

, coming into the Delta from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to build the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...

 or SNCC. Moses later said that Moore was a guiding force from the start.

His house was used as a "revolving dormitory" and "safe house" for activists during the movement's voter-registration drives in the 1960s, recalled Margaret Block, a friend. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...

, and John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...

; Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...

, and Rev. Jesse Jackson were some of his guests.
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