Harry T. Moore a better Floridian for Statuary Hall

[struggle4progress]

Martin Dyckman
10:57 a.m. EST December 30, 2015

Florida had been a state for less than a century when it came time to honor famous citizens with two statues at the U.S. Capitol, and there were few plausible candidates. Dr. John Gorrie, the physician who invented mechanical refrigeration – imagine modern Florida without it – was an outstanding choice. But from today’s perspective, Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith is a head-scratcher ...

No state has ever commemorated the civil rights revolution with a full-bodied statue at the Capitol of any native son or daughter, black or white. That’s a conspicuous oversight. The late Rosa Parks, whose defiance of segregation led to the Montgomery bus boycott, is in Statuary Hall by act of Congress ...

Harry T. Moore, a Suwannee County native who became the first martyr of the modern civil rights era when a bomb likely planted by the Ku Klux Klan exploded under his bedroom in Mims on Christmas 1951. Moore’s wife, Harriet, died in a hospital nine days later. Moore, a teacher and NAACP leader, filed the first lawsuit to pay black teachers the same as whites in Florida. It was unsuccessful, but he inspired others that succeeded. After the U.S. Supreme Court declared white-only primaries to be unconstitutional, his Progressive Voters League registered 116,000 blacks, 20 years before the Voting Rights Act ...

There has been more than enough history since 1922 to call for a new and truer symbol of what Florida has contributed to the nation.

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/opinion/columnists/guest-columns/2015/12/30/harry-moore-better-floridian-statuary-hall/78071748/

[Igel]

1. Memorials are for martyrs.

Statues intended to honor should honor for achievements, not passive victimization. Otherwise we raise feelings of humiliation to cult status instead of victories and accomplishments and institutionalize defeat and failure as praiseworthy. The best that comes out of that is a feeling of permanent oppression leading to a perpetual need to recompense that humiliation and take vengeance. Even in victory, humiliation must be perceived and therefore recompensed on the enemy.

Nasty psychological territory, that.

Filing a suit and losing it is hardly a noteworthy achievement. Of such there are many 'heroes'. By that standard, Goliath was the clear hero because he lost and was the victim. Upside down that thinking is. Valued not be it must.

Xians celebrate martyrdom because they are to be oppressed and downtrodden. Victory is to be in the future, according to this mindset, and in the present evil world they are to be outsiders. Silly view for the last 1000 years more, all things considered, but it's a neurosis and even the mainstream Xians are too often sticking by it.

Texans with a permanent chip installed in their shoulders "remember the Alamo." Best to dwell on defeat, I guess, no matter how prosperous you are there's always somebody to fight.

Muslims that celebrate martyrdom usually seem to be using the need to take revenge for humiliation as their impetus, their motivation. Remember Andalusia! (At least the parts that show domination and superiority, and then the unmerited defeat ... Ignore the beheadings of Xians and suppression/oppression of Xians and Jews ... If you know what's good for you.)

Etc.

Institutionalizing perceptions of victimization is bad territory. Let's not go there, for that is the realm of paranoia and suspicion where no equality or brotherhood can long survive.

[struggle4progress]

2. Moore was no passive victim:

He was a teacher and school administrator for over twenty years, until the Brevard County School Board fired him and his wife in 1946 for his political activities

He actively helped build the Florida NAACP into an effective statewide organization, organizing over 70 local branches, and helped found the Progressive Voters League of Florida

He worked tirelessly to promote voting rights and to oppose lynch law, until the moment he himself was murdered