FL H8057

Recognizes the third Saturday in December 2018 as "Harry Tyson Moore and Harriette Vyda Simms Moore Day" in Florida.

Harry Tyson Moore (born November 18, 1905) established the first Brevard County NAACP branch in 1934 and organized the NAACP Florida State Conference in 1941; his wife Harriette Vyda Simms Moore (born June 19, 1902) was also an educator and civil rights activist.

The couple increased Black voter registration in Florida to 31 percent of eligible voters by 1949, higher than any other southern state, and organized the Progressive Voters' League in 1945.

Harry Tyson Moore publicly accused Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall of orchestrating brutal beatings of the "Groveland Four" defendants in 1949 and worked with attorney Thurgood Marshall to successfully appeal their convictions to the United States Supreme Court.

Their home in Mims, Florida was bombed on Christmas night 1951; Harry Tyson Moore died en route to the hospital and Harriette Vyda Simms Moore died January 3, 1952, making them the first and only husband-and-wife civil rights activists murdered during the civil rights movement.