William Lewis Moore

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William Lewis Moore (April 28, 1927 – April 23, 1963) was a postal worker and a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who stood alone against racial segregation. He was born in Binghamton, New York, and grew up in New York and Mississippi. He later lived in Baltimore, Maryland.

In the early 1950s, Moore had a mental breakdown while a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent about a year and a half in an institution. After his release, he became an advocate for the mentally ill and joined the civil rights movement.

Moore led three solo protests to demand desegregation. His first march went to Annapolis, Maryland, and his second to the White House. He sent a letter to President John F. Kennedy saying he hoped to walk to Mississippi and deliver any letters from Kennedy to people along his route.

For his third march, he walked from Chattanooga, Tennessee toward Jackson, Mississippi to urge Governor Ross Barnett to allow integration. He wore sandwich boards that read "Equal rights for all" and "Mississippi or Bust." On April 23, 1963, near Attalla, Alabama, Moore was interviewed by radio reporter Charlie Hicks. Hicks offered to drive him to a motel, but Moore declined and kept marching. Less than an hour later, Moore was found shot to death on U.S. Highway 11. The gun was traced to Floyd Simpson, a Ku Klux Klan member he had argued with earlier that day; a county grand jury later declined to indict him.

Moore’s letter was found and read. It said that "the white man cannot be truly free until all men have their rights" and urged Governor Barnett to be gracious and go beyond what is required.

Moore’s death inspired songs by folk artists such as Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, and Wolf Biermann. In 2008, two activists retraced his final leg and delivered his original letter to the Mississippi state capitol. A memorial plaque honoring Moore was unveiled in 2010 in Binghamton, New York. In 2019, a historic marker at the site of the murder was commemorated after fundraising efforts by local historians and supporters.