Civil Rights pioneer Robert Moses dies at 86

Robert Moses, a pioneer of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, has died at the age of 86, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

An associate told the AP that Moses’s wife, Janet Moses, said her husband died Sunday morning in Hollywood, Fla. The cause of death was not determined.

Born in 1935 in Harlem, Robert Moses graduated from Stuyvesant High School and won a scholarship to attend Hamilton College where he became a Rhodes scholar. 

Moses graduated from Harvard University in 1957 with a master’s degree in philosophy, according to Stanford University.

Moses joined the civil rights movement, taking part in the second Youth March for Integrated Schools in Washington, D.C. He also worked in Mississippi’s Amite County to help register Blacks to vote, multiple outlets reported.

Moses had been beaten and arrested during his push for voter registration, attempting to file charges against his assailant, who was white, but an all-white jury acquitted the man and a state judge placed a protection order on Moses to the county line, according to the AP. 

In 1964, Moses formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as a challenger to the all-white Democratic delegation, but then-President Lyndon B. Johnson barred the party from entering the Democratic National Convention, AP reported.

Moses, who also protested the Vietnam War and cut off relationships with whites, returned to Harvard to earn his doctorate degree and taught in Tanzania. 

In 1982, He created the Algebra Project, which uses mathematics as a tool to help American children get quality education, the AP reported. 

Moses is survived by his wife Janet, daughters Maisha and Malaika, sons Omowale and Tabasuri and seven children, the New York Times noted.