Cecil+B.+Moore

By Cyrus, Ella, Hannah, Ishtar, Jacob, Madison,  Ma’At, Zayn and Zion, Grades 5 and 6 Cecil B. Moore was an extraordinary Freedom Fighter who inspired people to unite against police brutality, segregation, poverty and oppression in Philadelphia. He was strong willed, tough and determined and followed his heart. He didn’t stop for anything and never gave up. As a militant he was right on point, unconventional and would go to extremes to get things done. He used his skills as an attorney to fight for justice. Cecil B. Moore was a hero to many people in the Black community, but not all believed in his ways. Born in 1915, Cecil B. Moore was raised in West Virginia. He moved to Kentucky for high school, but came back to West Virginia for college. After graduating from Bluefield College, he worked at the Marine Corps during World War II. Soon he became a sergeant. In 1947 he quit the military and studied law at temple University. During his time at Temple, he was a liquor wholesaler, and drank and smoked a lot. In 1953, Moore got his degree and later became a skilled defense attorney. With all of Moore’s experience in the military and getting a degree in law, he became a strong civil rights activist. In 1962, Cecil B. Moore became the president of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP. The NAACP had been made up of the type of people who would sit down and talk about things, and hope that it would make a difference. But when Cecil B. Moore became president he turned the discussions into action. He organized protests against segregation and for Black people’s rights. He was a courageous and determined leader, and knew how to talk to anybody in any situation. He was strong, fiery, intelligent, and never backed down. From 1963 to 1965, Cecil B. Moore organized a number of protests. The protests were focused on desegregating union jobs so that Black people could have good occupations. Cecil B. Moore heard that the School District of Philadelphia would only hire union employees at a construction site in Strawberry Mansion. But the unions would not let African Americans join, so he organized a protest and got many people to volunteer. They decided to meet up at the construction site and block it so none of the workers could go in. It was supposed to be a peaceful protest but two hundred police officers showed up in full riot gear. Twelve protesters and nine policemen were sent to the hospital. Moore and the School District finally agreed that the protests would stop if African Americans got managerial jobs. The School District hired only five Black people. Another protest that Cecil B. Moore led was at the post office. The United States Post Office wouldn’t let African Americans be managers, so the Cecil B. Moore Freedom Fighters chained themselves to the doors of the post office with handcuffs. The police took the Freedom Fighters off the doors, arrested them and beat them up. The third protest was against two bus companies: Trailways and Greyhound. The two companies had a policy that Black people couldn’t be hired. As a response to the policy, Cecil and his army lay down in front of the buses. The effect was that the two companies started hiring African American drivers. In 1965, Cecil B. Moore organized a protest around the wall of Girard College. Girard College was a segregated boarding school. Stephen Girard began Girard College in 1848 and put in his will that the school be for white orphan boys. Stephen Girard had been asked to hold money by a Haitian revolutionary named Toussaint L’Ouverture. Instead, he used the money to build a boarding school that minorities couldn’t come to. The school was a white people’s boarding school in a poor Black community. Cecil B. Moore and the Freedom Fighters, many of whom were young, started marching and picketing around the wall. Surrounding the wall were a battalion of policemen, shoulder to shoulder, armed with weapons. The protesters picketed around the wall for seven months and seventeen days. The police used violence against the protesters to try to force them to give up. But the Freedom Fighters were determined to get Girard College desegregated, no matter what. Since he was an attorney, Cecil B. Moore was able to break Stephen Girard’s will through the Supreme Court, and Girard College was finally desegregated. Cecil B. Moore was a one-of-a kind civil rights leader. Though sometimes he was strict and rude, he always invested his life into fighting for freedom for the whole Black community. “I don’t want no more than the white man got, but I won’t take no less” he said. He was the voice of the working class and poor Black people in Philadelphia. He was their classy mayor of the heart, mind and soul. Some people said he was a destructive man who just wanted to stir his own people in excitement. But what they didn’t know is that he had sergeant rank in the marine corps, and was a highly skilled defense attorney. Cecil B. Moore didn’t fight for himself, but he fought for the people. He was a Black man with pride and power.