increase font size
Bob Moses, 1960s civil rights leader who saw math as road to equality, dies at 86
He founded the Algebra Project in 1982 to improve math literacy among underserved populations and served as the Mississippi field director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which worked to dismantle segregation in the 60s.
By REBECCA SANTANAAssociated Press
Share
Robert Parris Moses, an American civil rights activist who was shot at and endured beatings and jail while leading Black voter registration drives in the South during the 1960s and later helped improve minority education in math, has died. He was 86.
Moses, who was widely referred to as Bob, worked to dismantle segregation as the Mississippi field director of the Student Nonviolent 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 worked to dismantle segregation 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. (Credits: AP)
FLORIDA: Robert Parris Moses, a civil rights activist who was shot at and 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, who was widely referred to as Bob, worked to dismantle segregation as the Mississippi field director of the Student Nonviolent 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.
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 passed away Sunday morning in Hollywood, Florida. Information was not given as to the cause of death.
“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 towards justice, making our world a better place, said the head of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson.
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, has been a prominent Southern Baptist preacher and a supporter of Marcus Garvey, a Black nationalist leader at the turn of the century.
1960s civil rights activist Robert Moses has died
REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press
FacebookTwitterEmail 9
1of9FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2014 file photo shows Robert Bob Moses, a director of the Mississippi Summer Project and organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) answers questions about Freedom Summer in 1964 during a national youth summit hosted by the Smithsonian s National Museum of American History, at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Miss. 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, died Sunday, July 25, 2021, in Hollywood, Fla. He was 86.Rogelio V. Solis/APShow MoreShow Less
2021/07/26 10:52 FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2014 file photo shows Robert Bob Moses, a director of the Mississippi Summer Project and organizer for the Student Non-Violen. FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2014 file photo shows Robert Bob Moses, a director of the Mississippi Summer Project and organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) answers questions about Freedom Summer in 1964 during a national youth summit hosted by the Smithsonian s National Museum of American History, at the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Miss. 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, died Sunday, July 25, 2021, in Hollywood, Fla. He was 86. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)