Harry T. Moore - Civil Rights Activism

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 pay, 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.