Harry and Harriette Moore
Founder of the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Brevard County, Florida, Harry Moore has been called the first martyr in the Civil Rights Movement, as he was the first NAACP official murdered in the civil rights struggle. Moore had been working to organize a campaign against what he saw as the wrongful convictions of three Black men who had been accused of raping a white woman in Groveland, Florida, in 1949. While transporting two of the men to the new trial venue in 1951, the local sheriff, Willis McCall, claimed the two handcuffed men attacked him in an escape attempt. He shot them both, and one of them died. The other man later told the NAACP and FBI officials that the sheriff shot them both in cold blood. Harry T. Moore called for an indictment against McCall and called on Florida Gov. Fuller Warren to suspend McCall from office. Six weeks later on Christmas night, 1951, a bomb went off beneath the house of Moore and his wife in Mims, Florida. It was the Moores’ 25th wedding anniversary. Moore died on the way to the hospital in Sanford, Florida, while his wife died from her injuries nine days later.
Three generations of King
Martin Luther King
On April 4, 1968, King was staying in room 306 at Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, owned by businessman Walter Bailey and named after his wife. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, a colleague and friend, said he and King stayed in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often that it was known as the “King-Abernathy Suite.” According to biographer Taylor Branch, King’s last words were to musician Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at a planned event. King said, “Ben, make sure you play ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.”
