BROWARD COUNTY, FL - Northwest 7th Street in the Broward Municipal Services District will honor legendary civil rights activists Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore. Broward Commissioners approved naming NW 7th Street after the Moore’s at the request of Commissioner Dale V.C. Holness.
“It’s a fitting tribute to people who went back as far as 1935 in the struggle for equal rights and justice. They were leaders to ensure teachers got equal pay, that justice was done, that people could vote. They were members of the NAACP they lost their jobs as teachers…and their voting and civil rights efforts cost them their livelihood,” said Commissioner Holness.
The Moore’s were the first true civil rights activists of the modern civil rights era in Florida. Harry Moore organized the first branch of the NAACP in Florida in 1934 and eleven years later became President of the Florida Conference of NAACP branches. In 1945 he formed the Florida Progressive Voter’s League and became its Executive Director. He was instrumental in registering over 100,000 Black voters in Florida. He was an outspoken advocate against racial violence and lynching and was a vocal critic of the inequities in the criminal justice system. The Moore’s were teachers, who lost their jobs because of their civil rights activism. They brought about much change and would eventually pay the ultimate price.
On Christmas Day in 1951, the Moore’s were supposed to celebrate the holiday and their 25th wedding anniversary, but a bomb exploded under their bed before they could wake up. The heinous hate crime killed Mr. Moore and Harriet died nine days later. Newspaper headlines read that it was “The Bomb Heard Around the World.”
“They gave it all for so many of us to be able to have justice and equality,” said Holness.
Multiple investigations indicate that the perpetrators were members of the Ku Klux Klan, but despite the FBI involvement, the case remains unsolved due to interference by local law enforcement. The death of the Moore’s is regarded by some historians as the first assassination of civil rights leaders in the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Commissioners approved renaming the portion of NW 7th Street from NW 27th Avenue to NW 31st Avenue as “Harry-Harriette Moore Street.”
APRIL 27, 2021
MEDIA CONTACT:
Kimberly Maroe
Public Information Manager
Broward County Commission
(954) 357-8053
kmaroe@broward.org