Amzie Moore
Amzie Moore | |
---|---|
Amzie Moore photographed in 1963 by Harvey Richards. | |
Born | (1911-09-23)September 23, 1911 Grenada County, Mississippi |
Died | February 1, 1982(1982-02-01) (aged 70) |
Amzie Moore (September 23, 1911 – February 1, 1982) was an African-American civil rights leader and entrepreneur in the Mississippi Delta. He helped lead voter registration efforts. His former home is a Mississippi Landmark. A historical marker commemorates its history.[1] It is now a museum and interpretive center.
Early life
Amzie Moore was extremely influential in advocating and registering African Americans in Mississippi to exercise their right to vote as American citizens. Born September 23, 1911, on Wilkin Plantation in Grenada County, Mississippi, at the age of fourteen was left to fend for himself after his parents split, and his father abandoned him. The furthest he went in his education was tenth grade at Stone Street High School in Greenwood, Mississippi[2]
In 1935 he moved to Bolivar County and got a job as a custodian at the local Post Office; in the midst of the Great Depression, this was considered a “high status job” for an African American man in the deep South.
Having been involved in politics from a young age, he became a member of the Black and Tan Party which was an organization of African American Republicans. Although he was able to register to vote in 1936, he was unable to vote in the primaries, which heavily determined the outcomes of elections.[2] The Freedom Movement, as it was deemed during the times, came to the Mississippi Delta in 1940, and Moore became involved in meetings beginning to draft the explicit demands that African Americans in the state wanted[3]
World War II
In 1942, upon being drafted for World War II, as he put it, “I really didn’t know what segregation was before I went into the Army. It was the first time I really knew how evil segregation was”.[4] He continued to experience systematic segregation throughout his Southern stations; even in Calcutta, India there were still segregated enlisted men's clubs etc. “Why were we fighting? Why were we there? If we were fighting for the four freedoms that Roosevelt and Churchill had talked about, then certainly we felt that the American soldier should be free first.” The Japanese were capitalizing on the racism of the US and were actively using segregation as a point to discourage African American soldiers. Ironically, Moore's job was to counteract this propaganda and encourage African American soldiers that they played an important role in the fight against the Axis Powers. Once he arrived home, many whites had started a “home guard” to protect themselves against returning African American veterans; an FBI investigation into the numerous murders that occurred eventually led to the end of this particular type of aggression.[4] Moore was more angry and outraged at the oppression, and began to become more active in voter registration in Mississippi.[2]
Regional Council of Negro Leadership
Purchasing property, building a home, and starting a service station/restaurant, while continuing to be involved in local affairs established Moore as a leader in the community. In 1951, Dr. T.R.M. Howard founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) with hopes to be the African American equivalent of the white Delta Council. Wanting to be the united voice of the African Americans in Mound Bayou and surrounding areas, the RCNL quickly gained massive popularity, convincing the state police to not stop harassing drivers and began encouraging people to register to vote. [5]
At their first mass meeting, over thirteen thousand people attended; “We decided that the purpose of the Regional Council was to teach Negroes first-class citizenship, the preservation of property, the paying of taxes, the holding of public office, the changing of the economic standpoint”.[4] Moore and a few other leaders of the RCNL were also active participants in the NAACP, but throughout both organizations existence there was always underlying tension between viewpoints on how to bring freedom. The NAACP typically wanted to use legal measures to change the culture, with the RCNL focused more on the economic issues that plagued those living in the Delta. However they did work together when it came to voter registration; strongly stimulated by Bob Moses tapping Moore to lead the project in the Delta.[6]
NAACP
In 1955, at an NAACP meeting that he was not at, the Cleveland chapter nominated him as their president, and throughout the next year extensively built up that chapter making it the second largest in the state. He then became the vice president of the state conferences of the NAACP. When the Supreme Court desegregated public schools, the White Citizens Council began their rampage throughout the state, instilling even more fear in the African American community. There were many murders throughout the state of people who refused to take their name off the voting list, and Moore, along with many other leaders, received numerous death threats. In 1960, Moore brought the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to focus their voter registration efforts in Mississippi, ultimately enfranchising thousands of African American Mississippians.[4]
External links
“Eyes on the Prize; America, They Loved You Madly; Interview with J.W. Kellum and Amzie Moore,” 1979-08-29, American Archive of Public Broadcasting
“Eyes on the Prize; America, They Loved You Madly; Interview with Amzie Moore,” 1980-03-22, American Archive of Public Broadcasting
References
- ^ "Amzie Moore Home Historical Marker".
- ^ a b c Payne, C. (2007). TESTING THE LIMITS: Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi. In I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, With a New Preface (pp. 29-66). University of California Press. Retrieved March 27, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppcgt.7
- ^ Selbert, P. (2015, February 8). African-American heritage sites Mississippi. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, pp. H1–H5.
- ^ a b c d Fraser, C. G. (1982, February 7). Amzie Moore, 1960's Leader For Voting Registration, Dies. The New York Times, p. 48.
- ^ Beito, David T.; Beito, Linda Royster (2018). T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer (First ed.). Oakland: Institute. pp. 84–90. ISBN 978-1-59813-312-7.
- ^ Browne, G. (2001, Mar 28). Changing mississippi: Part 1 of 4; A cause to die for; the robert moses story. ProQuest 363201699
- v
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(timeline)
groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Devine
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians