BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Harriette Moore
| Harriette Vyda Simms Moore | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 19, 1902 West Palm Beach, Florida,United States |
| Died | January 3, 1952 (aged 49) Mims, Florida, United States |
| Occupation | Teacher, civil rights pioneer |
| Website | |
| Information on Harriette Moore | |
Harriette Vyda Simms Moore (June 19, 1902 – January 3, 1952) was an African-American teacher and civil rights worker. She was the wife of Harry T. Moore, who founded the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Brevard County, Florida.
Early life
Harriette Vyda Simms was born in West Palm Beach, Florida on June 19, 1902, to David Ira Simms (a wood lathe worker) and Annie (Warren) Simms. She had sisters Valerie and Mae, and brothers George, Arnold, Rupert and David, Jr. The family relocated toMims, Florida. As a youth, Harriette spent summers working in Massillon, Ohio with her father. Simms attended the segregated Daytona Normal Industrial Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida. She later graduated from Bethune-Cookman College, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, with an associate of arts degree in 1941 and a bachelor of science degree in 1950.
Simms taught elementary school classes for many years, in Merritt Island and Mims in Brevard County, and in Lake Park, Floridauntil her death. In Mims, she helped to cook lunch every day for the students.
Simms met Harry Tyson Moore while teaching classes in Brevard County. He was then working as principal of the Titusville Colored School. They married on December 25, 1926, and had two daughters together: Annie Rosalea (known as Peaches, 1928–1972) and Juanita Evangeline (known as Evangeline, born in 1930). .
Civil rights activism
Soon after the births of their daughters, the Moores founded the Brevard County chapter of the NAACP in 1934. Harry Moore later helped to organize the statewide NAACP organization.
In 1946, Harriette Moore and her husband were both fired by the Brevard County public school system and blacklisted due to their political activities.
Murder
On Christmas night, 1951, the Moores were fatally injured at home by a bomb that went off beneath their house. It was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Harry died on the way to the hospital in Mims, Florida. Harriette died from her injuries nine days later.
Although the state called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate, no one was indicted for the bombing and murders of the Moores. Renewed attention was brought to the case by a 1999 biography of Moore, describing him as the first civil rights martyr, and a 2000 PBS program about his life and legacy.
The Florida Attorney General re-opened an investigation into the murders in 2005, 54 years later. In its 2005-2006 re-investigation, the State of Florida concluded that the bombing murder of the Moores had been the work of violent members of a central Florida Ku Klux Klan group, and it named the four chief suspects, each of whom had died by then.[1] There were eleven other bombings against black families in Florida the year that the Moores were killed.[2]
The risk to activists and any blacks in the South was high and remained 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 the Moores, were activists, but most were either people who had refused to bow to racist convention, or were simply "innocent bystanders, unsuspecting victims of random white terrorism."[3]
Honors
Although the story of the Moores' lives faded into obscurity for many years, the late 20th century re-opening of the case provided a new appreciation for their work.
In 1999, Florida approved designation of the homesite of the Moores as a Florida Heritage Landmark.[4] Brevard County started restoring the site. Supplemented by independent funding, by 2004 the county had created the Harry T. and Harriette Moore Memorial Park and Interpretive Center at the homesite in Mims.[5] Brevard County named its Justice Center after the Moores and included material there about their lives and work.[6]
Recent developments
The State of Florida twice returned to the case, but was unable to file charges, as most of the men suspected to have been involved in the crime had died. In 1999, journalist Ben Green published a book based on his research of the case, Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr.
In 2005, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist re-opened a state investigation of Harry and Harriette Moore's deaths. On August 16, 2006, Crist announced the results of the work of the state Office of Civil Rights and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Rumors which had linked Sheriff Willis V. McCall to the crime were proven false. Based on extensive evidence, the state concluded that the Moores were victims of a conspiracy by members of a central Florida Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan. The report named the following four individuals, all of whom had reputations for violence, as directly involved:
- Earl J. Brooklyn, a Klansman known for being exceedingly violent, was discovered to have had floor plans of the Moores' home and was recruiting volunteers. He died about a year after the attack, apparently of natural causes.
- Tillman H. Belvin, another violent Klansman, was a close friend of Brooklyn. He also died about a year after the attack, of natural causes.
- Joseph Neville Cox, secretary of the Orange County, Florida chapter of the Klan, was believed to have ordered the attack. In 1952 he committed suicide after being questioned by the FBI.
- As he lay dying of cancer, Klansman Edward L. Spivey claimed to have been at the crime scene in 1951, and he implicated Cox in the attack.
The Moores' only surviving daughter, Juanita Evangeline Moore, joined former Attorney General Crist in the efforts to uncover the identity of her parents' killers. She is a 1951 graduate of Bethune-Cookman College and a retired government employee.
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