Harry T. Moore
Encyclopedia
Harry Tyson Moore was an African-American teacher, and founder of the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Brevard County, Florida
.
Moore became 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.
Moore also led the Progressive Voters League. 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. Moore and his wife, Harriette Vyda Simms Moore, died as a result of injuries sustained after their home was bombed. The first NAACP activist to be murdered, Moore has been called the first 1950s-era civil rights
martyr
.
in Suwannee County on the Florida Panhandle
, the only child of Johnny and Rosalea Moore. His father tended the water tanks for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and ran a small store
in front of their home.
Johnny Moore's health faltered when Harry was nine years old, and he died in 1914. Rosa tried to manage alone, working in the cotton fields and running her store on weekends, but in 1915, she sent Harry to live with one of her sisters in Daytona Beach. The following year he was moved to Jacksonville, where he lived with three other maternal aunts: Jessie, Adrianna and Masie Tyson, of whom two were teachers and the third a nurse. His aunts had a strong influence on him.
In 1919, Moore began his studies at Florida Memorial High School. Over the next four years, Moore excelled in his studies and joined the baseball team. He graduated in May 1925, and then went on to Bethune-Cookman College
, where he graduated with a Normal Degree in 1936. Soon after, he accepted a teaching position in Cocoa, Florida
. Later, Moore became the principal of the Titusville
Colored School in Brevard County; Florida schools were then racially segregated. There he met Harriette Vyda Simms, (born on June 19, 1902). They married on December 25, 1926 and had two daughters, Annie Rosalea Moore (1928–1972) and Juanita Evangeline Moore (born in 1930).
, investigation of lynchings, legal action against the all-white primaries
, and voter registration in the face of discriminatory state
laws. In 1937 he filed the first lawsuit
in the Deep South
to equalize salaries of black teachers with white teachers in public schools. Although this lawsuit failed, it led the way to other lawsuits that succeeded in gaining equal pay for black teachers.
After 1943, Moore became involved in reviewing every lynching
case in Florida that involved black people. He took sworn affidavits from the families of victims; in some cases, he launched his own investigations.
In 1944 the NAACP won a major victory when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Allwright
that the Democratic Party
's all-white primary in Texas and other states was unconstitutional. With the focus on voting, Moore led the Progressive Voters' League during the next six years in voter registration
drives that succeeded in registering 116,000 black people, 31 percent of those eligible to vote in Florida. It was a major increase in black voters and the percentage was 51 percent higher than the proportion of blacks registered to vote in any other southern state.
In 1946, the public school system fired the Moores and blacklisted them because of Harry's political activism. Moore then became a full-time NAACP activist, increasing the membership in the state to a peak of 10,000 in the next two years. He also pursued civil rights justice. NAACP membership in Florida fell sharply after the national office doubled the cost of individual dues to two dollars a year. Later NAACP national president Walter White
fired Moore from his state NAACP position because of disagreements over dues costs and the focus of his activities. The national organization wanted to concentrate on strategies to be used to wage legal challenges to segregation.
and held in custody by law enforcement. 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
, hand the prisoners
over to them. McCall claimed to have hidden the prisoners to protect them. The mob left the jail and went on a rampage
, burning buildings in the black part of town. The governor had to use the Florida National Guard
to restore order, which took six days.
Three of the four black men initially accused were arrested and charged. The fourth was killed by a police posse after escaping. Despite questionable evidence presented against them, the three black males were found guilty. A sympathetic jury sentenced sixteen-year-old Charles Greenlee
to prison
, while Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin
were sentenced to death.
As Executive Director
of the Florida NAACP, Harry 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 an appeal of Shepherd's and Irvin's convictions before the U.S. Supreme Court. A new trial was scheduled.
While transporting the prisoners, Sheriff McCall shot both handcuffed men. He claimed that they attacked him in an escape attempt. Irvin survived his wounds. Shepherd died at the scene. Irvin later claimed that the sheriff shot both him and Shepherd in cold blood. Harry T. Moore called for an indictment
against Sheriff McCall, and urged Florida Governor Fuller Warren
to suspend McCall from office.
. His wife died from her injuries nine days later.
Moore has been called the first martyr
in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the first NAACP official murdered in the civil rights struggle. 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, where the renowned poet Langston Hughes
read a poem written in memory of Moore.
Although the state called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) to help the investigation, it was unable to bring any indictments against the suspects.
There were eleven other bombings against black families in Florida the year that Moore was killed. The risk to 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 forty 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, bombing was prevalent in Birmingham, Alabama
in the 1950s, used by independent KKK groups to intimidate middle-class blacks moving into new neighborhoods.
read lines written in Moore's honor:
and also they name a road in east mims after him
(PBS) show about Moore's life.
In 2005 Florida Attorney General
Charlie Crist
re-opened a state investigation of Harry and Harriette Moore's deaths. On August 16, 2006, Crist announced the results of the work of the state Office of Civil Rights and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
. Rumors linking Sheriff Willis V. McCall to the crime were proven false. Based on extensive evidence, the state concluded that the Moores were victims of a conspiracy
by members of a Central Florida Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan
(KKK). The report named the following four individuals, all of whom had reputations for violence, as directly involved:
* Earl J. Brooklyn, a Klansman known for being exceedingly violent, was discovered to have had floor plans of the Moores' home and was recruiting volunteers. He died about a year after the attack, apparently of natural causes.
* Tillman H. Belvin, another violent Klansman, was a close friend of Brooklyn. He also died about a year after the attack, of natural causes.
* Joseph Neville Cox, secretary of the Orange County chapter of the Klan, was believed to have ordered the attack. In 1952, he committed suicide after having been pressed by the FBI during its investigation.
* Edward L. Spivey, another Klansman. As he was dying of cancer in 1978, he implicated Cox in the attack, and also claimed to have been at the crime scene in 1951..
The Moores' only surviving daughter, Juanita Evangeline Moore, joined former Attorney General Crist in the efforts to uncover the identity of her parents' killers. She is a 1951 graduate of Bethune-Cookman College
and a retired government employee.
Brevard County, Florida
Brevard County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the population is 536,521, making it the 10th most populous county in the state. Influenced by the presence of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, Brevard...
.
Moore became 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
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
and education. He investigated lynchings, filed lawsuits against 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...
barriers and white primaries
White primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after 1890 about until 1944...
, and worked for equal pay for black teachers in public schools.
Moore also led the Progressive Voters League. 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
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
state. Moore and his wife, Harriette Vyda Simms Moore, died as a result of injuries sustained after their home was bombed. The first NAACP activist to be murdered, Moore has been called the first 1950s-era civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
.
Early life
Harry Tyson Moore was born on November 18, 1905, in Houston, Florida, a tiny farming communityCommunity
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
in Suwannee County on the Florida Panhandle
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...
, the only child of Johnny and Rosalea Moore. His father tended the water tanks for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and ran a small store
Retailing
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
in front of their home.
Johnny Moore's health faltered when Harry was nine years old, and he died in 1914. Rosa tried to manage alone, working in the cotton fields and running her store on weekends, but in 1915, she sent Harry to live with one of her sisters in Daytona Beach. The following year he was moved to Jacksonville, where he lived with three other maternal aunts: Jessie, Adrianna and Masie Tyson, of whom two were teachers and the third a nurse. His aunts had a strong influence on him.
In 1919, Moore began his studies at Florida Memorial High School. Over the next four years, Moore excelled in his studies and joined the baseball team. He graduated in May 1925, and then went on to Bethune-Cookman College
Bethune-Cookman College
Bethune-Cookman University or B-CU is a private historically black university in Daytona Beach, Florida.- History :Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School in 1904...
, where he graduated with a Normal Degree in 1936. Soon after, he accepted a teaching position in Cocoa, Florida
Cocoa, Florida
Cocoa is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 16,412 at the 2000 census. As of 2008, the estimated population according to the U.S. Census Bureau was 16,478. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:Cocoa was...
. Later, Moore became the principal of the Titusville
Titusville, Florida
Titusville is a city in Brevard County, Florida in the United States. It is the county seat of Brevard County. Nicknamed Space City, USA, Titusville is on the Indian River, west of Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center and south-southwest of the Canaveral National Seashore...
Colored School in Brevard County; Florida schools were then racially segregated. There he met Harriette Vyda Simms, (born on June 19, 1902). They married on December 25, 1926 and had two daughters, Annie Rosalea Moore (1928–1972) and Juanita Evangeline Moore (born in 1930).
Civil rights activism
Soon after the birth of their daughters, the Moores founded the Brevard County chapter of the NAACP, in 1934. Moore also helped organize the statewide NAACP organization. He pursued a variety of efforts for civil rights, including equal payRemuneration
Remuneration is the total compensation that an employee receives in exchange for the service they perform for their employer. Typically, this consists of monetary rewards, also referred to as wage or salary...
, investigation of lynchings, legal action against the all-white primaries
White primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after 1890 about until 1944...
, and voter registration in the face of discriminatory state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
laws. In 1937 he filed the first lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
in the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
to equalize salaries of black teachers with white teachers in public schools. Although this lawsuit failed, it led the way to other lawsuits that succeeded in gaining equal pay for black teachers.
After 1943, Moore became involved in reviewing every lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
case in Florida that involved black people. He took sworn affidavits from the families of victims; in some cases, he launched his own investigations.
In 1944 the NAACP won a major victory when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright
Smith v. Allwright , 321 U.S. 649 , was a very important decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Democratic Party's use of all-white primaries in Texas, and other states where the party used the...
that the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
's all-white primary in Texas and other states was unconstitutional. With the focus on voting, Moore led the Progressive Voters' League during the next six years in 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...
drives that succeeded in registering 116,000 black people, 31 percent of those eligible to vote in Florida. It was a major increase in black voters and the percentage was 51 percent higher than the proportion of blacks registered to vote in any other southern state.
In 1946, the public school system fired the Moores and blacklisted them because of Harry's political activism. Moore then became a full-time NAACP activist, increasing the membership in the state to a peak of 10,000 in the next two years. He also pursued civil rights justice. NAACP membership in Florida fell sharply after the national office doubled the cost of individual dues to two dollars a year. Later NAACP national president Walter White
Walter Francis White
Walter Francis White was a civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for almost a quarter of a century and directed a broad program of legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist...
fired Moore from his state NAACP position because of disagreements over dues costs and the focus of his activities. The national organization wanted to concentrate on strategies to be used to wage legal challenges to segregation.
A Crime in Groveland
In July 1949, four black men were accused of raping a white woman in Groveland, FloridaGroveland, Florida
Groveland is a city in Lake County, Florida, United States. The population was 2,360 at the 2000 census. The Census Bureau estimated the population in 2008 to be 7,647...
and held in custody by law enforcement. 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
Ochlocracy
Ochlocracy or mob rule is government by mob or a mass of people, or the intimidation of legitimate authorities.As a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus meaning "the fickle crowd", from which the English term "mob" was originally derived in the...
of more than 400 demanded that the sheriff, Willis V. McCall
Willis V. McCall
Willis Virgil McCall was sheriff of Lake County, Florida, serving seven consecutive terms from 1944 until he lost his bid for an eight term in 1972. Known for his no nonsense attitude for enforcing the law, several incidents during his career made national headlines...
, hand the prisoners
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
over to them. McCall claimed to have hidden the prisoners to protect them. The mob left the jail and went on a rampage
Running amok
Running amok, sometimes referred to as simply amok is a term for a killing spree perpetrated by an individual out of rage or resentment over perceived mistreatment....
, burning buildings in the black part of town. The governor had to use the Florida National Guard
Florida National Guard
The Florida National Guard is the National Guard force of the U.S. state of Florida. It comprises the Florida Army National Guard and the Florida Air National Guard.The United States Constitution charges the National Guard with dual federal and state missions...
to restore order, which took six days.
Three of the four black men initially accused were arrested and charged. The fourth was killed by a police posse after escaping. Despite questionable evidence presented against them, the three black males were found guilty. A sympathetic jury sentenced sixteen-year-old Charles Greenlee
Groveland Four
The term Groveland Four was coined by newspapers for the American cause celebre in which four African-American men were accused of raping a Caucasian woman named Norma Padgett in Groveland, Florida, in 1949. The four men were Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin.Ernest...
to prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
, while Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin
Walter Irvin
Walter Irvin was born in Lake County, Florida. He served in the United States Army during World War II. In 1949, he and three other black men were accused of raping a white woman in Groveland, Florida. They were given the name Groveland Four by the newspapers...
were sentenced to death.
As Executive Director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
of the Florida NAACP, Harry Moore organized a campaign
Political campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, wherein representatives are chosen or referendums are decided...
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
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
won an appeal of Shepherd's and Irvin's convictions before the U.S. Supreme Court. A new trial was scheduled.
While transporting the prisoners, Sheriff McCall shot both handcuffed men. He claimed that they attacked him in an escape attempt. Irvin survived his wounds. Shepherd died at the scene. Irvin later claimed that the sheriff shot both him and Shepherd in cold blood. Harry T. Moore called for an indictment
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
against Sheriff McCall, and urged Florida Governor Fuller Warren
Fuller Warren
Fuller Warren was the 30th Governor of Florida.Born in Blountstown, Florida, he attended the University of Florida in Gainesville. While at the University of Florida, he was one of the early members of Florida Blue Key and was a member of the Tau Chapter of Theta Chi Fraternity...
to suspend McCall from office.
Murder
On Christmas night, 1951, Moore and his wife were fatally injured at home by a bomb that went off beneath their house. It was the Moores' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Moore died on the way to the hospital in Sanford, FloridaSanford, Florida
Sanford is a city in, and the county seat of, Seminole County, Florida, United States. The population was 38,291 at the 2000 census. As of 2009, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 50,998...
. His wife died from her injuries nine days later.
Moore has been called the first martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the first NAACP official murdered in the civil rights struggle. 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, where the renowned poet Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
read a poem written in memory of Moore.
Although the state called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) to help the investigation, it was unable to bring any indictments against the suspects.
There were eleven other bombings against black families in Florida the year that Moore was killed. The risk to 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 forty 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, bombing was prevalent in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
in the 1950s, used by independent KKK groups to intimidate middle-class blacks moving into new neighborhoods.
Legacy and honors
Langston HughesLangston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
read lines written in Moore's honor:
- Florida means land of flowers
- It was on a Christmas night
- In the state named for the flowers
- Men came bearing dynamite...
- It could not be in Jesus’ name
- Beneath the bedroom floor
- On Christmas night the killers
- Hid the bomb for Harry Moore.
- In 1952, Moore was posthumously awarded the Spingarn MedalSpingarn MedalThe Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for outstanding achievement by an African American....
by the NAACP, for outstanding achievement by an African American. Although the story of the Moores' lives receded into obscurity for years, the late 20th century re-opening of the case provided new appreciation for their work.
- In 1999, Florida approved designation of the homesite of the Moores as a Florida Historical Heritage Landmark. Brevard County started restoring the site.
- By 2004 the county had created the Harry T. and Harriette Moore Memorial Park and Interpretive Center at the homesite in Mims.
- Brevard County named its Justice Center after the Moores and included material there about their lives and work.
and also they name a road in east mims after him
Recent developments
The state twice returned to the case but was unable to file charges, since most of the men whom it suspected in the crime had died. In 1999 journalist Ben Green published a book based on his research of the case: Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr. His research had gone deeply into FBI files. His book was followed by a Public Broadcasting ServicePublic Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) show about Moore's life.
In 2005 Florida Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Charlie Crist
Charlie Crist
Charles Joseph "Charlie" Crist, Jr. is an American politician who was the 44th Governor of Florida. Prior to his election as governor, Crist previously served as Florida State Senator, Education Commissioner, and Attorney General...
re-opened a state investigation of Harry and Harriette Moore's deaths. On August 16, 2006, Crist announced the results of the work of the state Office of Civil Rights and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Florida Department of Law Enforcement
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is a Florida government agency. FDLE is composed of five programs: Executive Direction and Business Support, Criminal Investigations and Forensic Science, Criminal Justice Information, Criminal Justice Professionalism, and the Florida Capitol Police...
. Rumors linking Sheriff Willis V. McCall to the crime were proven false. Based on extensive evidence, the state concluded that the Moores were victims of a conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
by members of a Central Florida Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
(KKK). The report named the following four individuals, all of whom had reputations for violence, as directly involved:
* Earl J. Brooklyn, a Klansman known for being exceedingly violent, was discovered to have had floor plans of the Moores' home and was recruiting volunteers. He died about a year after the attack, apparently of natural causes.
* Tillman H. Belvin, another violent Klansman, was a close friend of Brooklyn. He also died about a year after the attack, of natural causes.
* Joseph Neville Cox, secretary of the Orange County chapter of the Klan, was believed to have ordered the attack. In 1952, he committed suicide after having been pressed by the FBI during its investigation.
* Edward L. Spivey, another Klansman. As he was dying of cancer in 1978, he implicated Cox in the attack, and also claimed to have been at the crime scene in 1951..
The Moores' only surviving daughter, Juanita Evangeline Moore, joined former Attorney General Crist in the efforts to uncover the identity of her parents' killers. She is a 1951 graduate of Bethune-Cookman College
Bethune-Cookman College
Bethune-Cookman University or B-CU is a private historically black university in Daytona Beach, Florida.- History :Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School in 1904...
and a retired government employee.
External links
- Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Memorial Park and Cultural Center — Museum, Historic Time line, Artifacts, Cultural Programs in Brevard County, FL
- "Who Was Harry T. Moore?", The Palm Beach Post, 16 August 1999
- Harry T. and Harriette Moore Homesite
- The Legacy of Harry T. Moore — PBS website
- 2006 Press Release, "Results of Harry T. Moore murder investigation", Office of the Attorney General of Florida
- 2006 Harry T. Moore Murder Investigation Details, Office of the Attorney General of Florida
- Florida House Speaker Byrd's 2004 Tribute to the Moores
- Murder of Harry & Harriette Moore, Civil Rights Movement Veterans
- The Moores' Cultural Complex, Mims, FloridaMims, FloridaMims is a census-designated place in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 9,147 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Mims is located at ....