Remembering Civil Rights Activist Bob Moses

Former Harlem River Houses Resident (January 23, 1935 – July 25, 2021) 

Robert “Bob” Parris Moses grew up in the Harlem River Houses with his parents and siblings. In the 1960s, he was a tireless activist in the Civil Rights Movement, working to help Black Southerners register to vote and organize sit-ins, often facing violent opposition. He was involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Council of Federated Organizations, and he helped create the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. He later became active in the anti-war movement; when he was drafted, he left the United States to live in Tanzania, where he worked as a teacher. After receiving amnesty for draft resistance, he came back to the United States and focused his activism on education. Using money he received as a MacArthur Fellow, he founded The Algebra Project, a national math literacy program targeting low-income students of color to improve math education and prepare youth for college-level math by the time they graduate from high school. Mr. Moses died on July 25, 2021, at the age of 86.

Photo of Bob Moses courtesy of the Princeton Public Library in New Jersey.