Bob moses sncc
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Bob Moses (activist)
American educator and activist (1935–2021)
Robert Parris Moses (January 23, 1935 – July 25, 2021) was an American educator and civil rights activist known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As part of his work with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP, SCLC), he was the main organizer for the Freedom Summer Project.[1]
Born and raised in Harlem, he was a graduate of Hamilton College and later earned a Master's degree in philosophy at Harvard University.[2] He spent the 1960s working in the civil rights and anti-war movements, until he was drafted in 1966 and left the country, spending much of the following decade in Tanzania, teaching and working with the Ministry of Education.
After returning to the US, in 1982, Moses received
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Bob Moses
In a 2013 interview, the historian Taylor Branch explained Bob Moses’s significance to the American civil rights movement. “To this day he is a startling paradox,” Branch said. “I think his influence is almost on par with Martin Luther King, and yet he’s almost totally unknown.” Through his many years as a civil rights organizer, Moses was self-effacing, observant and sensitive. These characteristics kept him out of the spotlight, but made him a highly effective leader.
Robert Parris Moses was born on January 23, 1935 in New York City’s Harlem. The son of a janitor, Moses grew up in a Harlem housing project but received a high-quality public education, which he turned into a productive, meaningful career. Because he did well in school, he was admitted to Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City’s best public school. He went on to earn a scholarship from Hamilton College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard. He spent the early years of his career teaching math at Horace Mann School, an exclu
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Moses, Robert Parris
January 23, 1935
Although he avoided publicity and was reluctant to assert himself as a leader, Robert Parris Moses became one of the most influential black leaders of the southern civil rights struggle. His vision of grassroots, community-based leadership differed from Martin Luther King’s charismatic leadership style. Nonetheless, King appreciated Moses’ fresh ideas, calling his “contribution to the freedom struggle in America” an “inspiration” (King, 21 December 1963).
Born on 23 January 1935 in New York City, Moses grew up in a housing project in Harlem. He attended Stuyvesant High School, an elite public school, and won a scholarship to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 1957 from Harvard University and was working toward his doctorate when he was forced to leave because of the death of his mother and the hospitalization of his father. Moses returned to New York and became a mathematics teacher at Horace Mann School.
During the late 1950s Moses became increasingly interested in the civil rights struggle
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