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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that pays tribute to people of the past by

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Speaker 1: telling their stories. Today, I'm Gabeluesier, and today we're looking

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Speaker 1: at a lesser known chapter from America's civil rights movement,

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Speaker 1: the day when a white postal worker was killed while

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Speaker 1: trying to deliver a letter in support of racial justice.

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Speaker 1: The day was April twenty third, nineteen sixty three. White

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Speaker 1: civil rights activist William Moore was shot to death at

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Speaker 1: a highway rest stop in Alabama. He was in the

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Speaker 1: midst of a one man march to Jackson, Mississippi, to

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Speaker 1: urge that state's governor, Ross Barnett, to support integration. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: Moore's efforts drew the wrong kind of attention in the

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Speaker 1: Jim Crow Deep South, and on the third day of

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Speaker 1: his journey, he was gunned down in cold blood. William

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Speaker 1: Lewis Moore was born on April twenty eighth, nineteen twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: in Binghamton, New York. After the death of his parents

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Speaker 1: when he was just two years old, Moore went to

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Speaker 1: live with his grandparents in Russell, Mississippi. He later joined

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Speaker 1: the US Marines, and after suffering a mental breakdown in

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen fifties, he started a newsletter to help

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Speaker 1: combat the stigma surrounding mental illness and PTSD. He eventually

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Speaker 1: returned to New York and began staging loan protests in

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Speaker 1: support of civil rights. He also married a woman named

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Speaker 1: Mary and became the stepfather to her three children. In

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties, Moore moved to an apartment in

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Speaker 1: Baltimore so that he could take a more active role

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Speaker 1: in the civil rights movement. He got a job as

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Speaker 1: a postal worker, became a member of the Congress of

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Speaker 1: Racial Equality, and started taking part in local demonstration to

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Speaker 1: end segregation. In March of nineteen sixty three, for example,

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Speaker 1: he was the only white person arrested during a protest

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Speaker 1: to integrate the Northwood Theater in Baltimore. Shortly after, Moore

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Speaker 1: decided to resume his loan protest activities by walking from

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Speaker 1: Baltimore to Annapolis, Maryland. Shortly after, Moore decided to resume

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Speaker 1: his loan protest activities by walking from Baltimore to Annapolis

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Speaker 1: while carrying signs promoting racial equality. His second march took

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Speaker 1: him from Baltimore to the White House, where he tried

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Speaker 1: and failed to deliver a letter to President John F.

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Speaker 1: Kennedy imploring him to push harder for integration. For his

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Speaker 1: third March, which would also sadly be his last, more

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Speaker 1: plans something even more ambitious. Cashing in the vacation days

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Speaker 1: he'd saved up at the post office, he planned to

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Speaker 1: walk approximately four hundred miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: Once again, his goal was to hand deliver a letter

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Speaker 1: in support of integration. This time though, the intended recipient

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Speaker 1: was Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, a Southern Democrat and a

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Speaker 1: staunch segregationist. In his letter, Moore warned the governor, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: do not go down in infamy as one who fought

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Speaker 1: the democracy for all which you have not the power

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Speaker 1: to prevent. Be gracious, give more than is immediately demanded

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Speaker 1: of you. Tragically, the letter would never reach its destination.

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Speaker 1: On April twenty first, nineteen sixty three, Moore arrived by

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Speaker 1: bus in Chattanooga and set out on his fateful journey south,

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Speaker 1: walking barefoot most of the time. He pushed his belongings

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Speaker 1: in a postal cart and wore a sandwich board sign

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Speaker 1: emblazoned with protest slogans. On one side it said end

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Speaker 1: segregation in America, Black or White, Eat at Joe's and

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Speaker 1: on the other side, equal rights for All Mississippi or bust.

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Speaker 1: Moore's peculiar one man march attracted the attention of residents

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Speaker 1: and local media in every town he passed through. Most

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Speaker 1: he encountered were supportive and friendly, but as Moore approached

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Speaker 1: the Alabama state line, people began to express concerns for

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Speaker 1: his well being. The state had a reputation for its

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Speaker 1: intense segregation and violent response to attempts to combat racism.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Martin Luther King Junior had written his letter

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Speaker 1: from the Birmingham jail just one week before Moore's arrival. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 1: he chose to continue his route as planned, and on

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Speaker 1: the morning of April twenty third, he found himself in

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Speaker 1: the tiny town of Calburn, Alabama, right along Round eleven.

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Speaker 1: According to notes in his journal, Moore stopped at a

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Speaker 1: small grocery store and had a brief conversation with the owner,

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Speaker 1: Floyd Simpson, and with a few of his customers. Invited

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Speaker 1: to chat with a few men who had heard about

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Speaker 1: my walk on TV, Moore wrote, they didn't think I'd

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Speaker 1: finish my walk alive. They didn't think people believed I

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Speaker 1: really stood for the things I do. He continued walking

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Speaker 1: down the highway that afternoon, and after about thirty miles,

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Speaker 1: Simpson and another man pulled up alongside him. Once again.

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Speaker 1: Moore noted the incident in his journal, writing quote, A

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Speaker 1: couple of men who had talked to me before drove

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Speaker 1: up and questioned my religious and political beliefs. Now I

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Speaker 1: know what you are, one of the men said, and

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Speaker 1: one was sure I'd be killed for my beliefs. A

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Speaker 1: few hours later, the Idawa County Sheriff's deputy stopped Moore

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Speaker 1: on the road and spent thirty minutes trying to convince

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Speaker 1: him to take shelter for the night. The deputy warned

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Speaker 1: that his life may be in danger, but Moore was

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Speaker 1: determined to finish what he'd started. Later that evening, a

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Speaker 1: local radio station reporter named Charlie Hicks also urged Moore

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Speaker 1: to get off the road. Someone had called into the

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Speaker 1: station that night with a tip about Moore's whereabouts, and

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Speaker 1: after interviewing him on the side of the highway, Hicks

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Speaker 1: offered to drive the protester to a hotel where he'd

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Speaker 1: be safe, but once again Moore refused. Less than one

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Speaker 1: hour later, a passing motorist named Willis L. Rod pulled

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Speaker 1: over at a rest stop about four miles south of

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Speaker 1: the county line. On his way to the restroom, he

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Speaker 1: discovered the body of William Moore lying on the edge

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Speaker 1: of the road by some picnic tables. The activist had

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Speaker 1: been shot in the head and throat at close range

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Speaker 1: with a twenty two caliber rifle, a weapon which was

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Speaker 1: later traced to none other than Floyd Simpson. The suspected killer,

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Speaker 1: was arrested four days later after several witnesses confirmed seeing

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Speaker 1: a car that looked like his near the spot where

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Speaker 1: Moore was shot. Additional evidence included Moore's journal entries, which

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Speaker 1: proved the men knew each other, as well as Simpson's

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Speaker 1: known ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Investigators proved that

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Speaker 1: the shells recovered from the murder scene and the bullets

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Speaker 1: from Moore's body matched the rounds fired from Simpson's rifle. However,

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Speaker 1: that still wasn't enough to convince a grand jury, and

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Speaker 1: on September thirteenth, nineteen sixty three, they determined there was

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Speaker 1: insufficient evidence to indict Floyd Simpson for murder. In the

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Speaker 1: wake of Moore's death, activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating

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Speaker 1: Committee and from the Congress of Racial Equality tried to

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Speaker 1: complete his march using the same rule. They were subsequently

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Speaker 1: beaten and jailed by Alabama state troopers, leaving Moore's letter

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Speaker 1: undelivered for the next forty five years. Finally, in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two admirers of Moore's activism decided to

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Speaker 1: finish the postman's last delivery. Ellen Johnson and Ken Lukeinnan

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Speaker 1: completed his march to Jackson, Mississippi, but when they attempted

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Speaker 1: to deliver a copy of Moore's letter to the then

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Speaker 1: Governor Haley Barber, they were turned away. Around the same time,

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Speaker 1: the FBI reopened the More investigation as part of its

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Speaker 1: Cold Case initiative to review unsolved murders committed during the

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Speaker 1: Civil rights era. Four years later, the report concluded that

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Speaker 1: the most probable subject involved in the murder was indeed

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Speaker 1: Floyd Simpson, but because he had died in nineteen ninety eight,

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Speaker 1: the case was closed again, this time for good. This

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Speaker 1: was never served for the murder of William Moore, but

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Speaker 1: his death as a white activist engaged in the fight

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Speaker 1: for black civil rights help promote solidarity within the movement.

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Speaker 1: His passing was marked by President John F. Kennedy, and

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Speaker 1: one year later, the cause he gave his life for

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Speaker 1: bore fruit with the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesyay, and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to keep up with the show, you can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free

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Speaker 1: to send him my way by writing to this day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasby Bias for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another Day in History class.

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Speaker 1: The pins a