Bob Moses

Bob Moses

Robert Parris Moses was an education activist and founder of The Algebra Project.

Media Obituary

Bob Moses' obituary at CBS News dated July 25, 2021:

Bob Parris Moses, a civil rights activist who endured beatings and jail while leading Black voter registration drives in the American South during the 1960s and later helped improve minority education in math, has died. He was 86.

Moses worked to dismantle segregation as the Mississippi field director of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the civil rights movement and was central to the 1964 "Freedom Summer" in which hundreds of students went to the South to register voters.

Moses started his "second chapter in civil rights work" by founding in 1982 the Algebra Project thanks to a MacArthur Fellowship. The project included a curriculum Moses developed to help poor students succeed in math.

Ben Moynihan, the director of operations for the Algebra Project, said he had talked with Moses' wife, Dr. Janet Moses, and she said her husband had died Sunday morning in Hollywood, Florida. Information was not given as to the cause of death.

Moses was born in Harlem, New York, on January 23, 1935, two months after a race riot left three dead and injured 60 in the neighborhood. His grandfather, William Henry Moses, had been a prominent Southern Baptist preacher and a supporter of Marcus Garvey, a Black nationalist leader at the turn of the century.

But like many black families, the Moses family moved north from the South during the Great Migration. Once in Harlem, his family sold milk from a Black-owned cooperative to help supplement the household income, according to "Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots," by Laura Visser-Maessen.

While attending Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, he became a Rhodes Scholar and was deeply influenced by the work of French philosopher Albert Camus and his ideas of rationality and moral purity for social change. Moses then took part in a Quaker-sponsored trip to Europe and solidified his beliefs that change came from the bottom up before earning a master's in philosophy at Harvard University.

Moses didn't spend much time in the Deep South until he went on a recruiting trip in 1960 to "see the movement for myself." He sought out the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta but found little activity in the office and soon turned his attention to SNCC.

"I was taught about the denial of the right to vote behind the Iron Curtain in Europe," Moses later said. "I never knew that there was (the) denial of the right to vote behind a Cotton Curtain here in the United States."

The young civil rights advocate tried to register Blacks to vote in Mississippi's rural Amite County where he was beaten and arrested. When he tried to file charges against a White assailant, an all-White jury acquitted the man and a judge provided protection to Moses to the county line so he could leave.

He later helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought to challenge the all-White Democratic delegation from Mississippi. But President Lyndon Johnson prevented the group of rebel Democrats from voting in the convention and instead let Jim Crow southerners remain, drawing national attention.

Disillusioned with White liberal reaction to the civil rights movement, Moses soon began taking part in demonstrations against the Vietnam War then cut off all relationships with Whites, even former SNCC members.

Moses worked as a teacher in Tanzania, Africa, returned to Harvard to earn a doctorate in philosophy and taught high school math in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Historian Taylor Branch, whose "Parting the Waters" won the Pulitzer Prize, said Moses' leadership embodied a paradox.

"Aside from having attracted the same sort of adoration among young people in the movement that Martin Luther King did in adults," Branch said, "Moses represented a separate conception of leadership" as arising from and being carried on by "ordinary people."

Mississippi Today

Bob Moses' obituary at Mississippi Today dated July 25, 2021:

Robert "Bob" Parris Moses, a civil rights leader, educational advocate and pioneer in grassroots community organizing whose efforts played a key role in helping Black Mississippians gain basic rights, died Sunday at 86.

On Sunday morning, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Legacy Project's 60th Anniversary Conference posted on social media that Moses, a civil rights hero, had died.

"We honor his vision, tenacity, and fearlessness. His deep belief in people who find themselves in the socio/economic bottom made a fundamental difference for millions of his fellow Americans," the SNCC Legacy Project said in a statement.

Moses, a New York native, was a field secretary for SNCC in Mississippi. He also served as co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), which used community organizing as a tool to launch voter registration projects across the state.

COFO served as an umbrella for an alliance between the SNCC, the Congress of Racial Equality and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and helped focus civil rights efforts in the state. COFO was known for its young organizers' door-to-door canvassing, voter registration preparation and workshops, and actual registration attempts in Mississippi.

Through his work with both of these organizations, Moses was instrumental in the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the 1964 voter registration drive created to increase the number of registered Black voters in Mississippi. That summer, white volunteers traveled to the South to work alongside African Americans who were fighting for access to the polls.

"At the heart of these efforts was SNCC’s idea that people—ordinary people long denied this power—could take control of their lives," the SNCC statement continued. "These were the people that Bob brought to the table to fight for a seat at it: maids, sharecroppers, day workers, barbers, beauticians, teachers, preachers and many others from all walks of life."

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP and a Mississippian, said “Bob Moses was a giant, a strategist at the core of the civil rights movement. Through his life’s work, he bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice, making our world a better place. He fought for our right to vote, our most sacred right. He knew that justice, freedom and democracy were not a state, but an ongoing struggle.

“So may his light continue to guide us as we face another wave of Jim Crow laws. His example is more important now than ever…Rest in power Bob.”

In response to the state Democratic Party denying access to Black Mississippians, Moses, along with Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and others created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The effort created national attention at the 1964 National Democratic Convention as conflict developed over whether to recognize the integrated party or the traditional party. New party members ultimately failed at being seated as voting members of the 1964 convention, but their efforts brought new attention to the plight of African Americans in Mississippi and other Southern states and ultimately led to a revolution in the national Democratic Party on racial issues.

“He was a civil rights icon who made sacrifices for what he believed,” said state Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez. “He could have done a lot of things, but he made sacrifices on behalf of the movement.”

In addition to his civil rights work, Moses taught math to students in Tanzania from 1969 to 1976. In 1982, Moses went on to found The Algebra Project. The national organization exists to teach students, especially low income students and students of color, mathematical literacy and prepare them for college.

In 2000, Moses was honored by both the Mississippi House and Senate, whose members in past years had passed laws that he fought to overturn denying voting rights and other basic rights to African Americans.

“One of my greatest honors as a legislator has been to sponsor a resolution honoring Bob Moses for his work with SNCC and, later, with the Algebra Project,” said Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. “He was a quiet, meticulous, effective visionary and leader and his contributions to helping Mississippi free itself from the yoke of discrimination and tyranny are incalculable.”

State Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson, was just this past weekend honored at Jackson State University along with Moses and other civil rights leaders as being part of a mural titled "Chain Breakers." Clarke was the first Black woman elected to the Mississippi Legislature. She began serving in the state House in 1984. Clarke described Moses “as a brilliant person and somebody who did what he said he was going to do….It was an honor to be included in a mural with him and other civil rights leaders.”

Moses also inspired an exhibit in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in downtown Jackson. The museum's fifth gallery, “A Tremor in the Iceberg,” is inspired by his description of the movement in Mississippi: “A tremor in the middle of the iceberg from a stone which the builders rejected.”

“Staff are saddened to hear of the death of Bob Moses, an American icon who left a tremendous legacy in Mississippi,” said Katie Blount, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “We are honored that he was the keynote speaker during the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Lecture Series in 2014. His commitment to justice is displayed throughout the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.”

Algebra Project Statement on Bob Moses' Death

Bob Moses' statement at Algebra Project dated July 25, 2021:

It is with sadness, our deepest condolences, appreciation and meditations that the Algebra Project, Inc., shares the news of the passing of our founder, mentor, President, teacher and friend, Robert Parris Moses. His transition to that higher level only inspires us all to love, struggle and live with and for our people as he did, as we continue to work to realize Bob’s vision of “raising the floor of mathematics literacy” for all young people in the United States of America.

At this challenging and reflective time we send peace, strength and love to the Moses Family: Bob’s wife, Dr. Janet Jemmott Moses; children Maisha Moses, Omo Moses, Taba Moses, Malaika Moses & daughter-in-love Saba Moses; and Grandchildren Zuri Sueksagan Moses, Parris Sueksagan Moses, Krishna Moses Mitchell, Johari Moses, Kamara Moses, Yohana Kahassai Moses & Yara Kahassai Moses.

We also send love and encouragement to the Algebra Project network – the Young People's Project, the Baltimore Algebra Project, Math Talk, The Ohio State University Math Literacy Initiative, the Southern Initiative Algebra Project and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Collaborative, the Florida Local Alliance for Math Literacy and Equity, as well as the We the People – Math Literacy for All Alliance, and countless more – to continue to pursue Bob’s math literacy work as our collective work.

Bob, you will always be with us, and you already know we absolutely will Keep on Pushing!

With ultimate respect,

Algebra Project, Inc., Board of Directors and Staff

Zinn Education Project at 'A People’s Celebration of Howard Zinn'

From the Zinn Education Project website:

On May 15, 2010, the Zinn Education Project was pleased to participate in A People’s Celebration of Howard Zinn held at the Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts.

Lauren Cooper, coordinator for the Zinn Education Project, was one of the speakers. Others included Bob Moses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and founder of The Algebra Project, Mariama White-Hammond, Executive Director of Project HIP HOP (Highways Into the Past – History, Organizing, Power), Mike Prokosch, staff member of Community Labor United, Myrna Morales of the Progressive Librarians Guild, Michael Spinnato, member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, and many more.

Donations received over the event expenses were donated to the Zinn Education Project, raising $1000 for our work.

Brownworth Connection

Victoria Brownworth Tweet dated July 25, 2021

Victoria Brownworth claims her parents Theodore Brownworth and Elizabeth Brownworth worked with Bob Moses:

"My parents worked with #RobertMoses in SNCC and in the Philadelphia to Philadelphia Project. He was one of their friends I met as a child..."

Civil Rights movement

By Lacy MacAuley:

"In 1964 – Freedom Summer, a central campaign to the civil rights movement, was directed by Institute for Policy Studies Fellow Bob Moses. The campaign helped scores of black Americans register to vote and set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi. The project became nationally known when three Freedom Summer volunteers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, went missing and then were found dead, having been killed by Ku Klux Klan members.

"In the mid-1960s, Moses organized efforts for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, challenging racial segregation and the disenfranchisement of people of color throughout the country.

Tribute to Golub and Montgomery

On November 16, 1989, Bob Moses served on the Tribute Committee for the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights Tribute to Leon Golub and Lucy Montgomery, held at the Congress Hotel, Chicago.

Institute for Policy Studies

In 1993 Robert Moses was listed among former "Trustees" of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC.

SNCC

In December 1963 Gloria Richardson attended a national meeting of SNCC leaders in Atlanta, where they discussed the future direction of the organization. Present were Bob Moses, Charles Sherrod, Frank Smith, John Lewis, Courtland Cox, Mike Thelwell, Stokely Carmichael, James Forman, Dottie Zellner, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Marion Barry, and Joyce Ladner, as well as staff and volunteers. Ella Baker and Howard Zinn led questioning to help the mostly young leaders work toward their vision for activism. In Atlanta they discussed and planned for an extended voting rights program to be conducted in the South the next year, an election year.