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White Supremacists Bomb the Moores (1951) On this day in 1951, the home of Harry and Harriette Moore, civil rights activists and educators, was bombed by white supremacists. Harry died while en...

White Supremacists Bomb the Moores (1951)

Tue Dec 25, 1951

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On this day in 1951, the home of Harry and Harriette Moore, civil rights activists and educators, was bombed by white supremacists, killing both of them.

Harry Tyson Moore (1905 - 1951) was an African-American educator, leader of the civil rights movement, and president of the Florida chapter of the NAACP. Harriette Moore was an elementary school teacher and civil rights activist. In 1946, both her and her husband were fired by the Brevard County public school system and blacklisted due to their activism.

On December 25th, 1951, their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the Moore home in Mims, Florida was bombed. The local hospital would not treat black people, and Harry died on the way to the nearest one that would, 30 miles away in Sanford, Florida. Harriette died from her wounds nine days later, on January 3rd, 1952, at the same hospital. Their deaths were two of the earliest assassinations in the civil rights movement.

Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated their murders, no one was ever prosecuted. A state investigation and forensic work in 2005 identified four Ku Klux Klan members who likely committed the bombing, however they had all been dead for many years.


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