Harry T. Moore Homesite

 memorial, African American Civil Rights Movement

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On Christmas night, 1951, Moore and his wife were fatally injured at home by a bomb that went off beneath their house. It was the Moores' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Moore died on the way to the hospital in Mims, Florida. His wife died from her injuries nine days later.

Moore has been called the first martyr in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the first NAACP official murdered in the civil rights struggle. The murders caused a national and international outcry, with protests registered at the United Nations against violence in the South. The NAACP held a huge rally in New York, where the renowned poet Langston Hughes read a poem written in memory of Moore.

Although the state called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to help the investigation, they were unable to bring any indictments against suspects. In its 2005-2006 re-investigation, the state of Florida concluded that bombing of the Moore house was the work of violent members of a central Florida KKK group and named the chief suspects. There were eleven other bombings against black families in Florida the year that Moore was killed.