Robert p moses biography

January 23, 1935

Although he avoided publicity and was reluctant to assert himself as a leader, Robert Parris Moses became one of the most influential black leaders of the southern civil rights struggle. His vision of grassroots, community-based leadership differed from Martin Luther King’s charismatic leadership style.

Nonetheless, King appreciated Moses’ fresh ideas, calling his “contribution to the freedom struggle in America” an “inspiration” (King, 21 December 1963).

Born on 23 January 1935 in New York City, Moses grew up in a housing project in Harlem. He attended Stuyvesant High School, an elite public school, and won a scholarship to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

He earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 1957 from Harvard University and was working toward his doctorate when he was forced to leave because of the death of his mother and the hospitalization of his father. Moses returned to New York and became a mathematics teacher at Horace M Bob Moses | The Algebra Project INC HUJY