Queen Mother Moore
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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 civil rights movement.
She was born Audley Moore in New Iberia, Louisiana, and both parents died before she completed the fourth grade and she became a hairdresser at age 15.
A few years later, she became part of the civil rights movement after viewing a speech by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican native known as the "Black Moses" who founded a back-to-Africa movement, which included the Black Star Line. Inspired by Garvey's views on African culture and pride, she moved to Harlem, New York and became a leader of his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Garvey's movement collapsed two years later after his conviction and deportation for mail fraud.
After Garvey's deportation, Moore became a leader of the civil right movement, working for a variety of causes over a public life lasting more than 60 years. She made her last public appearance at the million man march alongside Jesse Jackson during October 1995.
Taking the first of many trips to Africa in 1972, she was given the honorary title "Queen Mother" of an Ashanti tribe 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, aged 97.
[edit] Note
Most reference sources cite 1996 as the year of her death. However ([1]) cites 1997. The correct year is evidently 1996.
