Research Catalog

Title

Richard B. Moore papers, 1902-1978.

Author

Moore, Richard B. (Richard Benjamin)

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Pierrepointe, Reginald.
• Barrow, Reginald.
• Barrow, Errol Walton, 1920-1987.

Description

5.5 lin. ft.

Summary

The Richard B. Moore Papers document Moore's activities as a communist organizer in the 1930s, his publishing efforts and advocacy for Caribbean independence and federation in the 1940s and 1950s, and his activities as a Pan-Africanist intellectual, lecturer and book distributor in the 1960s and 1970s.

Subjects

• African American orators
• Communists > United States
• Carib Indians
• Marryshow, Theophilus Albert
• Nationalism > Caribbean Area
• Afroamerican Institute
• West Indies National Council
• African Americans > Name
• Pan-Africanism
• Caribbean Area > Politics and government > 1945-
• Black nationalism > United States
• Scottsboro Trial, Scottsboro, Ala., 1931
• West Indies (Federation)
• Frederick Douglass Book Center
• Moore, Richard B (Richard Benjamin)
• Pathway Press
• Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
• African American communists
• International Labor Defense

Source (note)

• Turner, Joyce Moore
• Joyce Moore Turner

Biography (note)

• Born in Barbados in 1893, Richard Benjamin Moore was a civil rights advocate, communist leader and intellectual, a bibliophile and a champion of Caribbean and African self-determination, who migrated to the United States in 1909 and played an influential role in social and political circles in Harlem for more than fifty years.

Indexes/Finding Aids (note)

• Finding aid available in repository.

Publications (note)

• Selected writings published in: Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem; edited by W. Burghardt Turner and Joyce Moore Turner. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Processing Action (note)

• Processed
• Cataloged
• Cataloging and container list updated

Call Number

Sc MG 397

OCLC

NYPW086000004-A

Author

Moore, Richard B. (Richard Benjamin)

Title

Richard B. Moore papers, 1902-1978.

Biography

Born in Barbados in 1893, Richard Benjamin Moore was a civil rights advocate, communist leader and intellectual, a bibliophile and a champion of Caribbean and African self-determination, who migrated to the United States in 1909 and played an influential role in social and political circles in Harlem for more than fifty years.

Moore's early organizing efforts included a 1915 unsuccessful import-export venture known as the Harlem Pioneer Cooperative Society, a printing shop and the Harlem Tenants League, which lobbied the New York State Legislature for rent control and better housing conditions in Harlem. His lasting contributions, however, were his leadership role in the African Blood Brotherhood organization in the early 1920s, and in the International Legal Defense which spearheaded the legal defense of the "Scottsboro Boys."

An outspoken Pan-Africanist intellectual, Moore addressed international congresses on Africa in the 1920s, drafted resolutions calling for an end to colonial rule and helped organize mass protests and relief efforts during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in the 1930s. He played a leading role in several Caribbean advocacy groups in the United States, including the West Indies Defense Committee and the West Indies National Emergency Committee. He circulated an appeal for self-determination of Caribbean and colonial peoples at the founding of the United Nations in 1945, and led a delegation of Caribbean Americans in petitioning the British government on the subject of West Indian federation and self-government.

Moore was also an author, lecturer and political analyst. He published a memorial edition of "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass" in 1941. He operated the Frederick Douglas Book Centre in Harlem for nearly thirty years and was the founder of the Afroamerican Institute. An acknowledged bibliophile, his collection of more than 15,000 books and publications relating to Africa and the black world is now housed at the library of the University of the West Indies in Barbados. Moore pioneered efforts in the 1960s to replace the name "Negro" with the term "Afro-American." He also wrote and published a pamphlet in defense of the Carib Indians, and helped revive T. Albert Marryshow's work, "Cycles of Civilization." Richard B. Moore died in 1978.

Indexes

Finding aid available in repository.

Publications

Selected writings published in: Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem; edited by W. Burghardt Turner and Joyce Moore Turner. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Connect to:

NYPL Digital Collections

Finding Aid

Added Author

Moore, Richard B. (Richard Benjamin)

Pierrepointe, Reginald.

Barrow, Reginald.

Barrow, Errol Walton, 1920-1987.

Research Call Number

Sc MG 397