Details Written by By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall Published: 19 December 2013

Late on Christmas night terrorists bombed a wood-framed house in Mims, Florida. Harry Moore, 46, died instantly. His wife Harriette, 49, would die days later. They were African-American civil rights leaders. That was 1951. No one was convicted. Too few remember.

The explosion was heard for miles. Neighbors rushed to their single story home usually kept so neat to find splintered wood, broken glass, and a gaping hole where the bedroom used to be. As the couple slept, terrorists had placed a bomb under their home near the bedroom.

That Christmas Day marked their 25th wedding anniversary. The Moores had been community activists standing up for justice when others were too afraid. In 1934, Harry Moore started the Brevard County NAACP. He organized Floridas first NAACP conference.

Harriette Moore was a teacher. Harry Moore was a principal. When Black and White teachers received very different salaries for the same work, Harry Moore helped Black teachers file the first lawsuit brought in the Deep South to equalize salaries. The Moores believed race pride, education, and determination would defeat the racial prejudice facing Black students in segregated Florida.

Harry Moore investigated the 1943 lynching of Cellos Harrison, African-American. According to the organization Civil Rights and Restorative Justice, the lifeless body of Cellos Harrison was found near Floridas State Road 84. He had been lynched in retaliation for the unsolved murder of a white service station owner killed three years earlier.

Then, in 1944, there was the lynching of 15-year-old Willie James Howard, African-American. He had been taken to the Suwannee River by Phil Goff, a White Florida legislator, who was the father of a girl to whom Howard had given a Christmas card. The boys' body was found the following day. Harry Moore took affidavits, wrote letters, and called for a federal investigation.

Although no one was arrested for these crimes Harry and Harriette Moore continued their fight for lynching victims in Florida long after others gave up. In spite of intimidation, the Moores pushed for voting rights. Harry Moore formed the Florida Progressive Voter's League.

Registering Black voters and challenging White political power resulted in the loss of both of their teaching jobs. However, Harry gained a position leading the Florida branches of the NAACP, as Executive Secretary.

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The Skanner Newspaper - Remember the Moores at Christmastime