Born: November 18, 1905, Houston, FL

Education: Florida Memorial High School, graduated 1925; Florida Normal Institute, Bethune-Cookman College, A.A., 1936, B.S., 1951

Died: December 25, 1951, Tallahassee, FL

A bomb demolished the Florida home of Harry and Harriette Moore, parents, teachers, and civil rights activists, Christmas night in 1951. He died then; hospitalized, she died January 3. Pressed by the NAACP, the FBI investigated the Ku Klux Klan to no avail. The killers remain unknown.

The Moores reflected the activism of many black teachers in the segregated South. Founders of the Brevard County (1934) and Florida State (1941) NAACP, they fought segregation, initiating teachers’ equal salary suit and seeking the right to vote. “A Voteless Citizen Is a Voiceless Citizen” was the motto of the Progressive Voters League, which Harry founded (1945). That year alone, it boosted statewide voter registration from 5 to 37 percent of voting age blacks. Retaliating, Brevard County's school board fired the couple in 1946. After, as state NAACP executive director (1946–51), Harry protested to stop police brutality against blacks. Conceding ground, Brevard County hired the state's first black deputy sheriff (1950) and even allowed him to arrest whites. In addition, Harry pursued the prosecution of Lake County's sheriff for shooting two black men, both in handcuffs. But he and his wife soon were killed. The National NAACP honored them as Civil Rights Martyrs (1952).