Robert Parris Moses (1935 - 2021)

Born 23 Jan 1935 in Harlem, Erie, New York, United States

Died 25 Jul 2021 at age 86 in Hollywood, Broward, Florida, United States

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Biography

Bob Moses is Notable.

Robert Parris Moses was an American educator and civil rights activist, known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and his co-founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. ^[1]

Robert Parris Moses was a Civil Rights activist, author, and educator who passed away July 25, 2021 at his home in Hollywood, Florida. He was one of three children born to Gregory H. and Louise Parris Moses. Gregory was a janitor and Louise a homemaker.

Robert, known as Bob, was a legendary leader of the Mississippi Summer Project, commonly known as Freedom Summer in 1964. As Mississippi director of Outreach for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Moses led voter registration drives throughout the southern states, focusing primarily on Amite and Pike Counties in Mississippi. Those primarily African American counties had been shut out of the political process due to poll taxes, changing residency requirements, and literacy tests. These "rules" made registering to vote almost impossible for African American residents.

By initiating voter registration drives, establishing "Freedom School" to teach the skills necessary to get registered and organizing sit-ins and other "tactical non-violence" efforts, Moses helped bring the issue a national spotlight. Moses, and many others, were beaten, intimidated and arrested for their efforts.

In the summer of 1964, three college aged activists were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, with involvement of local and county police. Their bodies were buried in an earthen dam, and discovered two month later. The tension between the activist volunteers and the white citizens, as well as news coverage, increased after the killings. Moses was credited with holding the coalition of local Black residents and the northern, mostly White, volunteers together.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was the result of the work Moses and others did in the summer and fall of 1964.

Although he was 5 years older than the age cut off, Moses received his draft notice in 1966. Instead of reporting for Vietnam War duty, Moses and his wife moved first to Canada as a conscientious objector and later to Tanzania, where they lived from 1969 until 1976. While there, three of their four children were born. Moses worked for the Tanzanian Ministry of Education as a math teacher. It was there that he formed ideas for the Algebra Project.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation that offered amnesty to those men who had fled the United States rather than serve in the military during the War with Vietnam. Moses and his family returned to the United States and completed his doctorate in philosophy at Harvard University.

After discovering that his daughter's high school was not teaching students algebra, he began teaching in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He started to develop an algebra curriculum aimed at improving minority students proficiency in math. Thus was born the Algebra Project.

In 1982 Moses was the recipient of a Mcarthur Fellowship, commonly referred to as the Genius Grant. He used the stipend to further codify his algebra curriculum and began testing his theories at Lanier High School in Jackson, Mississippi. Believing that proficiency in math could ease the way to college attendance and higher paying jobs, Moses enlisted support and cooperation from various community, educational and parental groups in historically underserved communities.

The Algebra Project enrolls students who score the lowest on state math exams and works with them throughout their high school years. Students who's math education follows the Algebra Project's curriculum score significantly higher on subsequent state tests passing on the first time taking the exam. To learn more about the Algebra Project refer to the Wikipedia source listed below and the book he co-authored with former SNCC worker Charles E. Cobb Jr.,  “Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights” (2001), which outlined the Algebra Project.

Bob was the second of three children born to Gregory H. and Louise Parris Moses. His father had been born in Virginia and had completed 4 years of high school, according to the 1940 US Census. He was employed as a laborer. Louise was a homemaker, having been born in Pennsylvania and had completed the sixth grade.

Bob's grandfather, William H. Moses, was a prominent Baptist minister and an uncle was a college professor. It was within this tradition of education that Robert's parents encouraged him to strive for good grades and educational advancement.

Bob attended New York City's Stuyvesant High School for gifted students. He earned a scholarship to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York and earned an honors degree in Philosophy in 1952.

In 1957, Bob earned his Master's Degree in Philosophy at Harvard University. He postponed further study in 1958 when his mother died. He returned to New York City to assist his father, who faced challenges to both his physical and mental heath. During this time, Bob taught mathematics at the Horace Mann private school for several years. Subsequently, Bob joined SNCC and became the Mississippi field secretary.

Bob was twice married. First to fellow SNCC worker Dona Richards, which ended in divorce. Dona Richards changed her name to Marimba Ani after the divorce. She is an anthropologist and African Studies scholar best known for her work Yurugu, a comprehensive critique of European thought and culture, and her coining of the term "Maafa" for the African holocaust.

Secondly, to another SNCC activist, Janet Jemmotte , with whom he had four children. Janet and Bob would work together teaching math in Tanzania and the United States.

Bob was a pacifist, having studied and worked with the Quakers during his late teens and early twenties. He was a practitioner of yoga, a vegetarian and a follower of the contemplative Taoist traditions.

Robert Moses died at his home in Hollywood, Florida, in July, 2021. He is survived by his wife, activist and educator Janet Jemmott Moses and his children Maisha Moses, Omo Moses, Taba Moses, Malaika Moses and Saba Moses as well as his seven grandchildren.

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Moses_(activist)

• https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-1-2021

• https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/moses-robert-p-1935/

• https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/robert-moses-born/

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bob-moses-algebra-math-black-students/2021/07/27/74e41f24-eef5-11eb-81d2-ffae0f931b8f_story.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bob-moses-dead/2021/07/25/0d2ae144-c3a2-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/official-1960s-civil-rights-activist-bob-moses-has-died/2021/07/25/f1dc6182-ed7c-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/bob-moses-civil-rights-leader-led-us-to-imagine-the-end-of-racism/2021/07/26/7777096e-ee68-11eb-81b2-9b7061a582d8_story.html

• Wikipedia - The Algebra Project -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra_Project

• Radical Equations—Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project (with Charles E. Cobb Jr.) (Beacon Press, 2001)[32] ISBN 0807031275

• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KQST-HB2 : 21 January 2020), Robert P Moses in household of Gregory H Moses, Assembly District 22, Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 31-1947A, sheet 7B, line 72, family 175, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2671.

• Wikipedia- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimba_Ani