Queen Mother Moore

Queen Mother Moore (July 27, 1898 – May 2, 1996) was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela and Jesse Jackson. She was an important figure in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and a founder of the Republic of New Afrika.

She was born Audley Moore in New Iberia, Louisiana, where both her parents died before she completed the fourth grade. Moore became a hairdresser at age 15. Queen Mother Moore was born to Ella and St. Cry Moore on July 27, 1898 in New Iberia, Louisiana. Her grandmother, Nora Henry, was enslaved at birth, the daughter of an African woman who was raped by her enslaver who was a doctor.Audley Moore’s grandfather was lynched, leaving her grandmother with five children with Ella Johnson, the mother of Queen Mother Moore, as the youngest. Ella Johnson died in 1904. Audley was six.(http://revcom.us/a/v19/905-09/908/queen.htm).

After viewing a speech by Marcus Garvey, Moore moved to Harlem, NY and later became a leader and life member of the UNIA. She participated in Garvey’s first international convention in New York City and was a stock owner in the Black Star Line. Along with becoming a leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Moore worked for a variety of causes for over 60 years. Her last public appearance was at the Million Man March alongside Jesse Jackson during October 1995(http://www.queenmothermoore.org).

Queen Mother Moore was the founder and president of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women as well as the founder of the Committee for Reparations for Descendants of U.S. Slaves. She is a founding member of the Republic of New Africa to fight for self-determination, land, and reparations. Queen Mother Moore, for most of the 1950s and 1960s, was the best-known advocate of African American reparations. Operating out of Harlem and her organization, the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women, Moore actively promoted reparations from 1950 until her death in 1996(Charles Henry, “The Politics of Racial Reparations” Journal of Black Studies, 142).

In addition too, Moore was bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church of Judea. She is a founding member of the Commission to Eliminate Racism, Council of Churches of Greater New York. In organizing this commission, she staged a twenty-four-hour sit-in for three weeks. She is a founder of the African American Cultural Foundation, Inc., which led the fight against usage of the slave term "Negro” (http://www.hierographics.org/mothermoorebio.htm).

In 1957, Queen Mother Moore presented a petition to the United Nations and a second in 1959, arguing for self-determination, against genocide, land and reparations, making her an international advocate. In an interview with E. Menelik Pinto, the late Queen Mother Moore explained the petition. In the petition she asked for 200 billion dollars to monetarily compensate for 400 years of slavery. The petition also called for compensations to be given to African Americans who wish to return to Africa and those who wish to remain in America (http://www.queenmothermoore.org).

Taking the first of many trips to Africa in 1972, she was given the honorary title "Queen Mother" by members of Ashanti in Ghana, which became her informal name in the United States. She attended the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa, according to her family.

Queen Mother Moore died in a Brooklyn nursing home from natural causes at age 97.