By Amber L. Moore, Project Archivist, Amistad Research Center
Amistad staff are pleased to announce that the guide for the Ronnie Moore Papers is available online. Ronnie M. Moore is a civil rights activist, community development consultant and photographer from New Orleans. He was a field secretary in the South for the Congress of Racial Equality (1961-1965) and the executive director of the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality, Inc. (1965-1973).
Moore began working full-time as a field secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1961. In this position, Moore worked on CORE's Southern program where he established voter registration initiatives in the South. In 1965, Moore was appointed as the executive director of the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality, Inc. (SEDFRE), a leadership training organization committed to serving civil rights organizations and producing community leaders. As executive director, Moore was responsible for staff recruitment and the development of leadership programs in more than 25 states.
The majority of his collection consists of photographs (1964-1972) from his involvement in the 1965 Voter Registration Drives in Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina; various conferences; elections; demonstrations and workshops in Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina; and other activities in the South, Connecticut, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
The online guide for the Ronnie M. Moore papers can be found here at the Center’s searchable archival database.
Above: Bogalusa, Louisiana demonstration, 1964. From the Ronnie M. Moore papers, Amistad Research Center. Images may not be reproduced without permission.
“Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations,” is a collaborative project between Emory University, the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and the Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans and Atlanta. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Informatio Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.