No account of Brevard’s black history would be complete without a tribute to Harry and Harriette Moore, civil rights activists who were bombed to death in their home in Mims on Christmas night 1951.
Previously, the Moore taught at the county’s only black school in Titusville, paving the way for many black residents to vote. They registered 116,000 with the Florida Democratic Party over six years, a number 51% higher than any other southern state.
Decades before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were recognized for their civil rights activism, Harry and Harriette fought for equality.
In 1934, Moore founded the Brevard County National Association for the Advancement of People of Color (NAACP).
In 1937, Moore, along with the late Supreme Court Justice Thourgood Marshall, and the all-black Florida Teachers Association filed the first Deep South lawsuit to compensate black-and-white teacher salaries. The case was unsuccessful, but it spurred dozens of others who eventually led to the move.
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