Robert "Bob" Parris Moses

Robert Parris Moses (born January 23, 1935 in Harlem, New York, also known as Bob Moses) is an American educator and civil rights activist, known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. He was a graduate of Hamilton College and completed a master's in philosophy at Harvard University.

Since 1982 Moses has developed the nationwide Algebra Project in the United States. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship and other awards for this work, which emphasizes teaching algebra skills to minority students based on broad-based community organizing and collaboration with parents, teachers and students.

at a glance

From Podesta, James. "Moses, Robert Parris 1935—." Contemporary Black Biography. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 6 Nov. 2015 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Born January 23, 1935, in New York City, NY; son of Gregory (a janitor) and Louise Parris; married Dona Richards (an SNCC secretary; divorced 1966); married Janet Jemott (an SNCC field secretary) 1968; children: Maisha; three others. Education: Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, B.A., 1956; Harvard University, MA, 1957, Ph.D. candidate 1977-1982.

Horace Mann High School, Riverdale, New York, Mathematics teacher, 1958-1961 ; Student Nonviolent Coor-d inating Committee (SNCC), Mississippi field secretary, 1961-1964; Council of Federated Organizations (COP O), voter registration program director, 1962-1964; Freedom Vote project, Mississippi, director, 1963; fled to Canada to avoid Vietnam War draft, working odd jobs, 1966-1968; Tanzania, Africa, mathematics teacher, 1969-1976; Algebra Project, Cambridge, Massachusetts, director, 1982–.

Startling paradox

from NPR.org

A Northerner In The South

Moses spent the early '60s working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi. At the time, the group was struggling to make headway in the state. They faced a largely poor and rural black population who lived in terror of well-organized and often brutal white supremacists.

But by 1963 things were changing. Starting that spring, Moses had sharecroppers in the Delta town of Greenwood lining up at the county courthouse, every day, to try to register to vote. After one march through town, facing down police with dogs, Moses and a handful of others were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

The ensuing trial was a spectacle. Moses remembers the courtroom packed with supporters bused in to witness.

"I'm on the witness stand, and [Federal District Judge Claude Clayton] looks at me and he says, 'Why are you taking illiterates down to register to vote?'" Moses recalls. "Basically we said, 'Well, look, the country can't have its cake and eat it, too. It can't have denied a whole people access to literacy and then turn around and deny people access to voting.'"

Taylor Branch, a leading historian of the civil rights era, says Moses' Northern roots, quiet demeanor and philosophical training made him different from many of the movement's decidedly Southern and evangelical leaders.

"He spoke quietly, he didn't give big sermons like Martin Luther King," Branch says. "He didn't seek out dramatic confrontations like the Freedom Riders and the sit-ins, but he did inspire a broad range of grassroots leadership."

Branch says Moses was self-effacing, observant and sensitive. He says Moses went south to serve Mississippi's sharecroppers and ended up a leader by helping to push voter registration to the center of civil rights work.

"To this day he is a startling paradox," Branch says. "I think his influence is almost on par with Martin Luther King, and yet he's almost totally unknown."

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• Wikipedia, Conversations on Principled Lawyering in Times of Political Crisis (September 21, 2007), Once in a Lifetime Class with Robert "Bob" Moses During Spring Semester Posted Jan 13, 2012