From FloridaToday:
Harry T. Moore knew he was a marked man.
He helped sign up black voters throughout the state in the 1930s and ’40s, organized more than 50 Florida branches of the NAACP and investigated lynchings around the state.
It was his insistence on equal rights and his refusal to be intimidated that led to his killing on Christmas Night, 1951, in the small city of Mims in East Central Florida. Moore’s wife, Harriette, also was killed by the bomb set beneath their home.
”Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore were the first martyrs of the civil rights movement,” said Sonya Mallard, coordinator of the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Memorial Park and Museum in Mims, which is built on the spot where the Moores were murdered. “Harry T. Moore got over 116,000 blacks to vote. Remember, voting is a big thing, and for Harry T. Moore to do that, he traveled the backroads in Florida with threats against his life.”
