Harry T. Moore

Harriette V. Moore

The Life of Harry Tyson Moore

Harry, Harriette, Annie Rosalea, and Juanita Evangeline

Harry Tyson Moore was born in Houston, Florida on November 18, 1905.
His parents were S. Johnny Moore and Rosalea Alberta Tyson Moore.

Harry graduated from Florida Memorial High School, Live Oak, Florida in 1925;
attended Florida A& M in Tallahassee; and graduated from Bethune-Cookman College
in Daytona Beach with a Normal Degree in 1936, and a B.S Degree in 1951.

His family consists of:

Wife -- Harriette Vyda Simms Moore (1902 - 1952)
Daughter -- Annie Rosalea Moore Hampton (1928 - 1972)
Daughter -- Juanita Evangeline Moore (1930 -   )
Grandson -- Drapher Adholtz Pagan, Jr. [Skip] (1953 -   )
Great grandson -- Darren Allen Pagan (1992 -   )

His work experience included being:

• Teacher in the Monroe Elementary School in Cocoa from 1925 to 1927
• Principal of Titusville Colored Junior High School from 1927 to 1936
• Principal and 5th/6th grade teacher at Mims Colored Elementary School from 1936 to 1946
• Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Florida State Conference from 1947 to 1951

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Some Of His Accomplishments:

• 1934 -- Organized and became president of the first Brevard County Branch of the NAACP.
• 1937 -- Organized a group who selected John Gilbert to file suit for equal pay for black and white teachers.

• 1941 -- Organized the first State conference of NAACP Chapters in the State of Florida - Became its President.
• 1945 -- Formed the Progressive Voters League of Florida - Became its Executive Director.
• 1945 -- Launched a Voter Registration Drive in November that increased black voter registration from 5% to 37%. The slogan was: "A Voteless Citizen is a Voiceless Citizen."
• 1946 -- June 4th, the Brevard County School Board fired both Mr. and Mrs. Moore. School Board documents list the firings as resignations.
• 1946 -- NAACP names him to the new post of state executive director, a position paid from dues raised in Florida.
• 1948 -- He demands state investigations of police violence against blacks.
• 1950 -- His efforts in Brevard County lead to Florida's first appointed black deputy sheriff with the authority to arrest both blacks and whites.
• 1950 -- The nonpartisan national NAACP objects to his sending out combined mailings to members of the NAACP and the partisan Progressive Voters League, signing his name and his titles in both organizations..
• 1951 -- He urges Governor Fuller Warren to remove Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall from office for shooting two manacled black prisoners.
• 1951 -- In November the Florida state NAACP convention, led by national officers, removed him as salaried Executive Director of the Florida NAACP, and made him the unpaid state coordinator; owing him nearly a year's salary.
• 1951 -- Christmas evening - a bomb was exploded under their bedroom, killing both Harry and Harriette.
• 1952 -- Harriette died 9 days later, on January 3rd, of internal injuries.

  
  The murder of the Moores remains unsolved!

  
  In 1952 the FBI launched a massive investigation of their deaths and Ku Klux Klan activity in Central Florida. The investigation pointed toward three Klan members, one of whom committed suicide the day after a FBI interview. The investigation slowed down Klan activity, but led to no arrests.

PHOTO GALLERY Click on the small picture to see an enlargement. Use the BACK button of your Browser to return.					Excerpt from: EBONY -- April 1952 THE BOMB HEARD AROUND THE WORLD Repercussions from Florida blast make it most explosive since Hiroshima atom bomb The world quickly took note. In Asia and Africa, Moore's slaying in a nation that called itself the world's greatest democracy became front page news. Newspapars in France and Brazil, in Israel and the Philippines editorialized about the death of Moore. In the world forum of the United Nations, Russia's Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky was quick to throw the Moore murder in the faces of American deligates - including one Negro delegate, Channing Tobias. Behind the iron curtain, the Communists had a field day with dispatches from the Russian Tass news agency with details of the Moore slaying. America's foremost delegate to the UN, Eleanor Roosevelt, admitteed: "That kind of violent incident will be spread all over every country in the world and the harm it will do us among the people of the world is untold." Over decent America a pall of shame settled. More sermons were preached, more resolutions adopted and more protest telegrams and letters sent about the Moore killing than about any other racial event in the decade.
	Harry as a youth.		Harry as a young man.
	Recently married.		Harry and Harriette.
	Harry in the orange grove.		Harriette with the car.

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