Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots

Robert Parris Moses, a legendary figure in the civil rights movement and founder of the Algebra Project, an educational foundation for disadvantaged children, has led many lives, merged into a single life of service. Visser-Maessen, a Dutch historian specializing in the civil rights movement, eschews the trappings of conventional biography and focuses on Moses’s activities (the best-known of which are the Mississippi-centered voter registration drives, the Freedom Summer Project, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party) and philosophical influences (chiefly Albert Camus and Quaker pacifism). Given Moses’s commitment to grassroots-based activism, Visser-Maessen pays close attention to his daily activities as a self-effacing organizer. Sometimes the detail overwhelms, but it allows the author to delineate the roles of significant activists less known to the general public, such as Ella Baker and Amzie Moore. It also conveys the pervasive racial terror in Mississippi in the mid-20th century. While focusing on Moses’s civil rights work, Visser-Maessen conveys that his subsequent work in education was not a departure, but a meaningful step forward. Of special value is the final section, a comprehensive critique of Moses’s treatment in civil rights historiography. 10 illus. (June)