About 40 people gathered for prayer, song and remembrance of the couple’s lives.
By Finch Walker
(Source Florida Today):
TITUSVILLE — Under the shadows of oaks draped in Spanish moss, about 40 people gathered at a graveyard Saturday afternoon near Titusville for an annual service that honors the memory of two slain Black activists.
Community members and Black activists spoke at LaGrange Cemetery to recall the lives of Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, two Brevard residents who fought for the rights of African Americans in the civil rights movement and were killed on Christmas Day of 1951 in a bomb blast.
“(It’s been) 71 years since the assassination and yet it’s important for us to understand that the cause, the movement for which they gave their lives … continues to be the work of the association that they were part of and of a people that they represented,” said Leon Russell, chair of the National Board of Directors for the NAACP.
Russell, who has been to at least 40 memorial services for the Moores, encouraged those in attendance to remember what they fought for.
“Let’s understand that Harry T. Moore (and) Harriette V. Moore gave their lives to make sure that what’s written on that dollar bills — E pluribus unum: out of the many, one — became a reality in this nation, and that everyone was treated equally.”
Isaiah Henry, a dual-enrolled Titusville High School and Eastern Florida State College student, spoke of the struggles of the Moores.
“Ever since our ancestors stepped foot into this country, it seems that we have always had chains around our ankles and stumbling blocks in our way. However, Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette decided they were going to overcome every obstacle intended to hinder them in their pursuit of justice and equality,” he said.
He went on to speak of what they fought for and accomplished, from starting Brevard’s NAACP chapter to helping Florida reach the highest percentage of Black voters in the South at the time.
Christmas Day will mark 71 years since the Moores were killed in their Mims home on Dec. 25, 1951. The husband and wife, both educators, had celebrated their wedding anniversary that day. That night, as they lay in their bedroom, a bomb blast destroyed part of their home. Because the nearest hospitals at the time treated only white people, the Moores had to be taken 30 miles away to a hospital in Sanford, where they died of their injuries.
Though their deaths made headlines across the world, their home was not rebuilt until seven decades later at the Moore Cultural Center Complex, just up the road from where the couple was buried. The story of the Moores’ work — from helping to grow the NAACP throughout Florida, to helping file a lawsuit against the county’s school board seeking equal pay for Black and white teachers, to cofounding Florida’s Progressive Voters League — went largely forgotten for many years.
At the time, press coverage of their deaths, and related incodents of racially motivated bombings, were discouraged, on the grounds that the negative publicity would hurt tourism in Florida.
However, activists — led mainly by those in the Black community — continued to strive to remember the Moores. In February 2021, Brevard’s school board passed a resolution acknowledging its failure to renew the Moores’ teaching contracts as a result of racist opposition to the couples’ activism, posthumously reinstating them as Brevard Public Schools “teachers emeritus.”
This resolution also ensured that Brevard Public School students would learn about the Moores through mandatory school curriculum. Developed in part by the Moore Cultural Complex, the curriculum has a module geared toward fourth-graders, as well as modules for seventh, eighth and 10th grade. There is also a high school elective on African American history, and a field trip for eighth-graders to the museum at the Moore Cultural Complex.
Henry asked the crowd Saturday to continue the Moores’ work and not take their efforts for granted.
“The only way we are going to have a change in this country is if we take advantage of the things that our ancestors fought for, which includes voting, speaking out without the thought of being lynched, becoming wealthy with our own businesses and utilizing the freedom that our ancestors did not possess,” he said. “This was the Moores’ dream.”
The memorial included prayer, a song by Eastern Florida State College student and Moore Cultural Complex intern Angelica Sosa and continued encouragement by multiple speakers to follow in the Moores’ footsteps with local activism.
Colin Mitchell, president of the Florida State Conference NAACP Youth and College Division, called the event a time to reclaim a dark moment in history.
“Today, we recognize, reclaim and re-energize the legacy of Harry T. and Harriete V. Moore,” he said. “Today we are gathered here on the sacred ground to remember and celebrate greatness. Today is an occasion to celebrate great civil rights leaders and NAACP members who chose to sacrifice rather than to gain, who chose to be respected rather than popular.”
He recalled a Martin Luther King Jr. quote that he believed the Moores epitomized.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘If you want to be important, wonderful. If you want to be recognized, wonderful … but recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.”
Finch Walker is a breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at 321-290-4744 or fwalker@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @_finchwalker
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