Civil Rights hero, activist
by Jack Criss
The Bolivar Bullet
Amzie Moore was a prominent figure in the Mississippi civil rights movement and voter registration campaign who, while born in Greenwood, spent most of his formative, active adult years in Cleveland. After his passing in 1982, his legacy in the movement for equality, has quietly grown in stature as the accomplishments of his life have become more widely known. Today, in fact, there are many scholars who argue that he deserves a much higher place in civil rights history than he has received.
Mississippi Department of Transportation Central District Commissioner Willie Simmons knew Moore and said when he thinks of him today, the word “fearless” comes to mind.
“He was such a strong man who was so very committed to his beliefs,” said Simmons. “He worked hard as a facilitator to bring the Black and White communities together while recognizing the many obstacles and inequalities that existed in his time. I was fortunate to have followed him working at the Cleveland Post Office after I returned from my military duty. So, I got to see him up close as a business owner, an activist, a community leader–whatever role was necessary or needed, he seemed to fill. His influence and legacy is still felt to this day and touches many families and their children through the Head Start programs he initiated.”
Simmons said the thing he most remembers about Moore were his mannerisms.
“At the time he was active, Black men could easily be derided as ‘angry’ if they were to voice disagreements,” he recalled. “Amzie understood that but he also understood the wrongs that needed changing. He had the demeanor to sit down with those, especially whites, who disagreed with him and seek common ground. I was told a story by the late Charlie Capps, who was then the sheriff in Bolivar County, that Amzie was preparing to host Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Cleveland back in the early 60s and that there were a group of whites, KKK members in fact, who, of course, were totally against that. But, as an enforcer of the law, Mr. Capps told me that he got Amzie and the KKK leader together in a room and said that Dr. King would be coming and that he didn’t want any problems. And, they both agreed. No incidents occurred. That episode speaks volumes about both Amzie and Charlie, really.”
Moore was born on September 23, 1911, on the Wilkins plantation near Greenwood to Black sharecropper parents. When Moore was fourteen, his mother died leaving him to care for himself by picking cotton in Drew. While living with different family members and friends, Moore attended Stone Street High School in Greenwood and made a living by doing household chores and working part-time jobs at a café, hotel, and a cotton gin.
In 1935 Moore accepted a federal post office job in Cleveland, a rare position for African Americans to assume at the time in the South. In the same year, his yearning for Black economic development and empowerment drove his interests in politics. When Moore registered to vote in 1935, an almost impossible feat for Mississippi Blacks for that time, he could vote only in general elections and not the primaries. Experiencing the economic downturn and fear of the Depression, Moore switched his allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic Party in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the early 1940s, Moore secured a federal loan to build a brick house with in-door plumbing and married Ruth Carey, a beautician. The two later divorced in 1961.
When the United States entered World War II, Moore joined and served in a segregated army from 1942 to 1946. His experiences in China, Burma, and India influenced his decision to bring about as much social change as he could when he returned to the States, which he did in 1946. Upon returning to Cleveland that year, Moore opened a combination service station, beauty shop, and restaurant with a loan from the Standard Life Insurance Company.
His subsequent success in business led him to start a movement for economic development with T.R.M. Howard, Aaron Henry, and Medgar Evers. In 1951 the four men founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, and, five years later, Moore was elected president of the Cleveland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1955. Throughout the next year extensively built up that chapter making it the second largest in the state.
Moore then became the vice president of the state conferences of the NAACP. When the Supreme Court desegregated public schools, the White Citizens Council began instilling even more fear in the African American community and Moore, along with many other leaders, received numerous death threats.
The 1960s Civil Rights movement in Mississippi benefited greatly from Moore’s teachings and networks in which he actively involved. When Robert “Bob” Moses, a New York teacher and leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), came to Mississippi in 1960, he met with a very receptive and enthusiastic Moore. He persuaded SNCC to turn from sit-ins and other direct action protests to voter registration and taught students how to target the Black population, especially in rural areas–who to contact; and how to effectively move in and around Delta cities like Ruleville, McComb, and Greenwood.
Moore quickly became a major adviser to SNCC in Mississippi and helped recruit young locals to work alongside their northern counterparts. His grassroots strategies helped the organization to launch a major voter registration drive during Freedom Summer of 1964.
After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Moore continued his social and economic activism. He retired from the post office in 1968 and began to organize programs for Head Start and the Child Development Group of Mississippi. He also worked with the National Council of Negro Women and helped obtain low-income housing for people called the Turnkey III Project, in East Cleveland. He later re-married the former Mary Chatman and they had two sons.
Moore died in Bolivar County Hospital in Cleveland on February 1, 1982 at the age of 69 years old. Mrs. Mary Chatman Moore passed away from lung cancer last year in Cleveland.
Pastor Sammy Rash of Cleveland, who also knew Moore, said he first met him when the future reverend was 14 years old.
“It was around 1958 when I met him,” said Pastor Rash. “He was a smart, diplomatic man who met with and knew some of the great leaders of his day–people like Dr. King, President Lyndon B. Johnson–he knew and worked with them. I also believe that the Mississippi Civil Rights movement started and succeeded due to the work of Amzie.
“Amzie was more than a Civil Rights activist, even though that was so very important,” continued Pastor Rash. “He was also an extremely devout, religious man with strong faith in God. That’s what he built his foundation on. Everybody loved Amzie and he helped everybody in this community. Any success you see in the Bolivar County Black community–including my own–is really due to the vision and leadership of Amzie Moore. I also believe that the Mississippi Civil Rights movement started and succeeded due to the work of Amzie,” said Rash.
Dr. Amzie Moore, Jr., one of Moore’s sons, said he is in the tentative stages of writing a biography of his father since, amazingly, no such volume solely about the legendary man currently exists.
“He is in quite a few other books and anthologies about the Civil Rights movement and era but, no, there is not one book just about my father. I hope to correct that and have just begun the process,” said Dr. Moore, an instructor in Social Work policy and statistics at Chicago State University while also supervising the thesis of Masters students who has held that position for 12 years. “I was told by none other than Bob Moses that I should write a book about my father. So, yes, that is a project I will be working on.”
Dr. Moore was 10 years old when his father passed away. “And, I was never really cognizant or aware of his incredible role in the Civil Rights movement,” he admits, “and he didn’t talk about it much, probably because I was so young. It wasn’t until I became older, especially when I went into the Navy, that I became aware of his impact on so many lives and his historical role in the movement. I just knew Amzie Moore as a father, a man who took me to school and who, almost every single day, took me to Sonic Drive-In to get a hamburger together!” laughed Dr. Moore. “He was a kind, very religious man who also read a lot–but he just didn’t talk about his past.” Moore’s other son, Darrin, is a businessman who currently still lives in Cleveland.
In 2001, the city of Cleveland renamed Shady Grove Park to Amzie Moore Park in honor of his legacy. Then, in 2016, the Bolivar County Board of Supervisors–led by James McBride– along with help from Will Hooker, the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Delta State University, and Saint Peter’s Rock Missionary Baptist Church collaborated to restore the house where Amzie Moore and his family lived and turned it into the Amzie Moore House Museum & Interpretive Center.
“It’s a wonderful shrine to Amzie’s life that contains many great artifacts and displays,” said Commissioner Simmons.