On 25 December 1951, Harry T. Moore and Harriette Moore, teachers and civil rights activists, were killed on Christmas Day when their house was bombed by racist terrorists in Florida.
The Moores were teachers and graduates of Bethune Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 1934, they founded a chapter of the NAACP in Brevard County (East Central Florida). For more than a decade, they fought for equal rights, investigating lynchings, challenging barriers to voter registration, and advocating for equal pay for Black teachers in public schools.
The Moores work led to the NAACP to file the first lawsuit in the South calling for the equalization of pay for white and Black teachers. Although efforts at the state level failed, federal lawsuits eventually led to equal salaries in Florida.
Hary also became involved in the 1949 Groveland rape case. Four Black men were falsely accused on raping a white woman. A white mob of 400 rampaged through Groveland's Black community. The National Guard was called out to restore order.
When an all-white jury convicted the men and sentenced them to death. Harry led a campaign to overturn the convictions. In 1951, the Supreme Court granted the appeal. While the two defendants were being driven to the a pre-trial hearing, the sheriff shot them, killing one and critically injuring the other.
Six weeks after the Groveland incident, a bomb exploded under the bed of Harry and Harriette Moore. Harry died on the way to the hospital and Harriette died nine days later. Harry Moore became the first NAACP official to be assassinated. It took more than half a century to identify four Klan members responsible for the murders.
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