Description: Chilling cover on this rare 24 page Communist Party pamphlet devoted to the murder by bombing of NAACP leader Henry Moore and his wife on Christmas night in 1951. From Wikipedia: 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 fore runner 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.[7] 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 bring charges.[8] Eventually, the FBI indicted seven Klansmen for lying about their involvement in other racial violence in the hope that the pressure of the indictments would force some of the Klansmen to crack and testify about the Moore case. However, the ploy did not 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 1991–1992 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, 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. 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 simply "innocent bystanders, unsuspecting victims of random white terrorism."[9] For example, bombing was especially prevalent in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1950s and was used by independent KKK groups to intimidate middle-class blacks who were moving into new neighborhoods.[10] https://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/terror/1951.html Also From Wikipedia: Harry Tyson Moore (November 16, 1905 – December 25, 1951) 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. Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette Moore, also an educator, were the victims of a bombing of their home in Mims, Florida, on Christmas night 1951. As the local hospital in Titusville would not treat Blacks, he died on the way to the nearest one that would, a Black hospital in Sanford, Florida, about 30 miles to the northwest. His wife died from her wounds nine days later, on January 3, 1952, at the same hospital.[1] This followed their both having been fired from teaching because of their activism. 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 2005–2006 resulted in naming the likely perpetrators as four Ku Klux Klan members, all long dead by that time.[2] Harry T. Moore was the first NAACP member and official to be assassinated for civil rights activism; the couple are the only husband and wife to be killed for the movement.[1] Moore has been called the first martyr of this stage of the civil rights movement that expanded in the 1960s. In the early 1930s, Moore had become 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. 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.
Price: 175 USD
Location: Watchung, New Jersey
End Time: 2024-11-30T00:11:41.000Z
Shipping Cost: 5 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Culture: Black Americana