Opinion
Remember the Moores at Christmastime
Late on Christmas night terror-
ists bombed a wood-framed house
in Mims, Florida. Harry Moore,
46, died instantly. His wife Harri-
ette, 49, would die days later. They
were African-American civil
rights leaders. That was 1951. No
one was convicted. Too few
remember.
The explosion was heard for
miles. Neighbors rushed to their
single story home usually kept so
neat to find splintered wood, bro-
ken glass, and a gaping hole where
the bedroom used to be. As the
couple slept, terrorists had placed
a bomb under their home near the
bedroom.
That Christ-
mas
Day
marked their
25th wedding
anniversary.
The Moores
had been com-
m u n i t y
activists
standing up
for
justice
when others
were
too
afraid.
In
1934, Harry Moore started the
Brevard County NAACP. He
organized Florida’s first NAACP
conference.
Harriette Moore was a teacher.
Harry Moore was a principle.
When Black and White teachers
received very different salaries for
the same work, Harry Moore
NNPA
C OLUMNIST
Gloria J.
Browne-
Marshall
helped Black teachers file the first
lawsuit brought in the Deep South
to equalize salaries. The Moores
believed race pride, education, and
determination would defeat the
racial prejudice facing Black stu-
Fear erases memories.
No arrests were made.
dents in segregated Florida.
Harry Moore investigated the
1943 lynching of Cellos Harrison,
African-American. According to
the organization Civil Rights and
Restorative Justice, the lifeless
body of Cellos Harrison was
found near Florida’s State Road
84. He had been lynched in retali-
ation for the unsolved murder of a
white service station owner killed
three years earlier.
Then, in 1944, there was the
lynching of 15-year-old Willie
James Howard, African-Ameri-
can. He had been taken to the
Suwannee River by Phil Goff, a
White Florida legislator, who was
the father of a girl to whom
Howard had given a Christmas
card. The boys’ body was found
the following day. Harry Moore
took affidavits, wrote letters, and
called for a federal investigation.
Although no one was arrested
for these crimes
Harry and Harri-
ette Moore contin-
ued their fight for
lynching victims in
Florida long after
others gave up. In
spite of intimida-
tion, the Moores
pushed for voting
rights.
Harry
Moore formed the
Florida Progres-
sive
Voter’s
League.
Registering Black voters and
challenging White political power
resulted in the loss of both of their
teaching jobs. However, Harry
gained a position leading the
Florida branches of the NAACP,
as Executive Secretary.
But, by 1951, Harry Moore was
probably considered too radical
for the NAACP. Several years
prior to the NAACP’s famous case
of Brown v. Board of Education,
the Moores were pushing for inte-
gration of public facilities and
statewide civil rights legislation.
Although the NAACP wanted him
removed, Harry Moore refused.
Harry Moore said he “placed his
life on the alter” for racial justice.
The Groveland case only
increased the danger. Two years
earlier, Florida’s Groveland com-
munity was the site of mob vio-
lence when four young black men
were accused of raping a White
woman. They were convicted and
sentenced to die. Harry Moore
investigated.
When the Groveland defendants
were beaten in jail Moore levelled
charges of police brutality. Whites
rioted when the U.S. Supreme
Court overturned the Groveland
death sentences. Then, while driv-
ing back to court, the local sheriff
shot two of the handcuffed Grove-
land defendants, killing Sammy
Shepard. Sheriff Willis McCall
claimed they had tried to escape.
Harry Moore called for the
arrest of the sheriff. It was
November of 1951. The Moore’s
house was bombed that Christmas.
An FBI investigation pointed to
three klansmen. But, fear erases
memories. No arrests were made.
The FBI file was closed in 1955.
There were attempts to re-open
the case. In 1978 an informant
died of cancer days before he was
scheduled to testify about the
killings. In 1991 the case was
reopened but failed to deliver
results. After nearly 50 years,
Florida’s NAACP and Department
of Justice succeeded in gaining a
full investigation.
In 2004, Florida Attorney Gen-
eral Charlie Crist revealed the 4
men he believed conspired to kill
the Moores. Their names are: Earl
Brooklyn, Tilman Belvins, Joseph
Cox, and Ed Spivey. By that time,
these Klansmen, long suspected of
committing this crime, were all
deceased.
However, the sacrifice of the
Moores remains a part of civil
rights history. In Brevard County,
Florida, a beautiful re-creation of
their home is open to all who wish
to consider the price of freedom.
This memorial park and cultural
center, created in their honor, is on
11 acres of land once owned by
civil rights activists.
Freedom has never been free.
This year remember Harry and
Harriette Moore. They paid the
ultimate price for freedom on
Christmas Day.
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, an
Associate Professor of Constitu-
tional Law at John Jay College in
New York City, is the author of
“Race, Law, and American Socie-
ty: 1607 to Present,” and a legal
correspondent covering the U.S.
Supreme Court, United Nations,
and major court cases. Twitter:
GBrowneMarshall
Did the Fed Remove the Punch Bowl Too Fast?
Last week the Federal
Reserve’s Federal Open
Market
Committee
announced it will ease back
on its “pedal to the metal”
monetary easing policy. The
Fed will remain in an
expansionary mode, just
slower.
To an optimist, this is a
sign from an independent
authority that the economy
is stabilized and on a sus-
tained path forward. Unem-
ployment rates are falling,
job creation over the last
few months is averaging
more than 200,000 net new
jobs a month, the Gross
Domestic Product (the
value of all goods and serv-
ices made in America in a
year) rose 4.1 percent last
quarter, led by investment,
and housing starts increased
to a five-year high in
November. Those are good
signs. President Obama
could take a bow. Republi-
cans, who have conceded
nothing to the president on
economic policy, would be
left with more whining. But
it may be too early to
remove the punch bowl.
The Fed believes the
good signs in the economy
A FL - CIO
William
Spriggs
prove its policy is moving
the economy forward. It is
obviously true that with
Congress locking the presi-
dent into endless
debates on shrinking
the government and
slowing the economy
that the Fed is the
only economic poli-
cymaker trying to
expand the economy.
Clearly, if the Fed
did not take action,
things would be
worse. But that is dif-
ferent than whether
the policy actually is mov-
ing the economy. Here the
story is more difficult.
The Fed controls interest
rates, and so can encourage
more investment to take
place-the low cost of money
makes more investment
projects profitable. Private-
sector investment is
recovering. It has
returned,
in
real
amounts, to its pre-
recession levels in
equipment and intel-
lectual property, but
still lags in construc-
tion. But, as a percent
of the GDP, private
investment is a smaller
share of GDP than its
pre-recession peak of about
19 percent of GDP. Worse,
while interest rates are low,
ments. They have been
reducing investments since
2008 and are at levels that
are near 13-year lows. At
precisely the time invest-
ments in our schools, roads,
ports, sewer and water sys-
tems can be made at record
low interest rates, the public
sector is de-investing.
This lack of robust
investment
is
critical
because a higher share of
GDP needs to go to invest-
ing in America’s future.
A healthy recovery needs to see rising
wages for workers.
public investment is declin-
ing. At the federal level,
government investment has
been falling since 2010,
mostly led by defense
reductions. State and local
governments are in worse
shape on making invest-
More investment, public
and private, is needed so we
have the public and private
capital-buildings, machines
and roads-to fuel and sus-
tain our growth. With such
low interest rates yielding
only modest levels of
investment, it isn’t clear
how easily the Fed could
stimulate the economy if it
slowed again. So, slowing
things down has great risks.
Clearly, higher interest rates
are not going to stimulate
more investment.
The real problem is that
the “real” economy-the
wages of workers, employ-
ment and output-are not
back to pre-recession levels.
Instead of investing to
expand America’s capacity,
too many firms are using
low interest rates to bor-
row money to buy back
their company’s stock.
That borrowing does not
increase potential out-
put, but it does make the
price of stocks rise and
therefore the pay and
bonuses of corporate
CEOs continues to soar.
It is a key reason the 1%
continue to see their
incomes rise.
A healthy recovery needs
to see rising wages for
workers. But, with more
than 1.2 million fewer jobs
than in 2008, and more than
2.8 job seekers per job
opening, there is little pres-
sure for wages to rise. The
record low share of young
people employed has result-
ed in a smaller share of
Americans working. That
makes households very
fragile, because each work-
er has to stretch his or her
pay further to support oth-
ers. Republicans think the
solution is easy on that
score-simply cut the gov-
ernment out of helping sup-
port the incomes of the
unemployed or the under-
employed, whose wages are
so low they need the Sup-
plemental Nutrition Assis-
tance
Program
(food
stamps) to eat. Such stingi-
ness does not reduce the
dependence of workers; it
just makes the 99 percent
piece of the pie shrink.
It may not be too late for
Congress and the president
to pull their weight and con-
duct the expansionary poli-
cy needed to restore public
investment to ensure Ameri-
ca’s growth. But the econo-
my is frailer with the Fed
taking away the punch
bowl.
Follow Spriggs on Twit-
ter: @WSpriggs. Contact:
Amaya Smith-Tune Acting
Director, Media Outreach
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December 25, 2013
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