VIERA, Florida (AP) – In 1946, civil rights activism from Brevard County’s educators Harry and Harriette Moore began work. It was returned in 2021.
Nearly 70 years after their murders, Brevard County’s Education Board passed a resolution Tuesday officially recognizing the unfair dismissals of the Moors – two early black civil rights activists often referred to as the movement’s “first martyrs” – and posthumously as “Brevard Public.” “Emeritus school teachers were declared. “
“The Brevard County Public Schools Board publicly recognizes the unjust act of refusing to allow the reigning school board to renew Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore’s 1946 apprenticeship contracts, and will forever stand the Moores for their outstanding service and significant contributions acknowledge … to the Brevard County School District, State of Florida and the nation, ”the resolution reads.
Harry Moore, a principal at an All Black Mims Elementary School, and his wife, Harriette, a teacher, were released in the summer of 1946 after school officials warned Harry to cease his political activities for downtrodden blacks across Florida.
The motion, unanimously adopted at the school board meeting on Tuesday, marks the first time in 75 years that the board has officially recognized the reasons for the failure to renew the Moore’s contracts.
The resolution followed months of discussions and lobbying by the Brevard Federation of Teachers and the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore cultural complex.
“There really is no better way to celebrate Black History Month than by signing this proclamation recognizing these local civil rights heroes,” said Anthony Colucci, president of the teachers’ union.
“Acknowledgment of this unfair dismissal was essential. It is important to recognize the injustices of the past in order to solve systemic problems of the present and future, ”Colucci said at the meeting.
The resolution also affirms the intention to introduce a special curriculum for the Moores to be taught in Brevard elementary and secondary schools, as well as an excursion for all 8th grade students to the Moore Cultural Complex in Mims until the Funding and easing COVID-19 restrictions.
Classes in the Moores will begin in the next school year, the resolution said.
“Year after year, we will learn about Moore’s character, accomplishment, and work that they have bravely done to advance civil rights in our community, in our state, and in our land (and) in Brevard County. This will a better place for it, “said Colucci.
Before the decision was made, school board vice chairman Matt Susin, an early proponent of the effort to reinstate the Moores, took a moment to acknowledge the teachers’ union and the Moore complex for their efforts.
“As a former teacher who brought kids from Space Coast (high school) to Moore Center, and as someone who wrote his thesis on Harry T. Moore in Florida a decade ago, I want to thank you for it Thank you for finishing and doing that, ”said Susin.
A celebration of the resolution and the solemn ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the Moore Complex, 2180 Freedom Ave in Mims, starting at 5:30 p.m. Guided tours of the Moore Museum in the complex are available from 4.15 p.m.
From 1934 until her death in 1951 – the result of a bomb planted under the floor of her Mims home on Christmas night – Harry Moore worked tirelessly to improve the lives of blacks in the southern Jim Crow era.
He founded the Brevard County NAACP in 1934 and spent the next 15 years creating or supporting emerging chapters in cities across the state. In 1937, in consultation with the legendary civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall, he filed a lawsuit against the Brevard School Board for equal pay for black teachers, the first of its kind in the deep south.
In the 1940s, Moore investigated personally reported lynchings, filed lawsuits for black people to vote, and founded Florida’s Progressive Voter League, which amassed one of the most powerful black voting blocs in the country.
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