Cecil B. Moore was born in West Virginia in 1915. A Black WWII vet, Moore’s fight for freedom He said: “I was determined when I got back (from World War II) that what rights I didn't have I was going to take, using every weapon in the arsenal of democracy.” 1/ 
He moved to Philly became a lawyer & served as the local NAACP president. In 1964 he began to fight the biggest battle of his life. 2/
Moore was based in North Philly, which was mostly poor & working class Black folk, but in the heart of the ‘hood stood an enormous 45 acre, private boarding school with neoclassical marble buildings called Girard College. 3/
Stephen Girard who was the wealthiest man in America at his death in 1831 and founded the school with his millions. But the will, written 34 years before the abolition of slavery, specified the school that admission was only for “poor, white male orphans”. 4/
By the 1960’s, the huge 10 foot stone walls surrounding it served as an enormous symbol of white supremacy to to the poor, struggling black families surrounding the school. 5/
Moore, broke from the NAACP’s exclusive dependence on legal maneuvering, & took to the streets. Suddenly, the battle for Girard College found new energy as young people were mobilized to challenge the school’s racist policy. 6/
In August 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King joined Moore & hundreds of protesters singing & praying that these walls of segregation- like the walls of Jericho in the Bible - would fall. 7/
In 1968, the US Supreme Court refused to overturn an appeal to integrate & hundreds celebrated in the streets in front of the campus. Sadly, the 7 boys whose legal challenge won the case were now ineligible to be admitted because they were older than the cutoff. 8/
When my father was killed in Philly, my mom was committed to finding a way to still give us an education. It wasn’t until after I graduated from Girard, then became 1st in my family to graduate college that I grasped how Moore’s battle 30 years before tore down walls for me. 9/
By winning the Battle for North Philly, Cecil B. Moore changed my life & the thousands alumni of color & who proudly call Girard College our Alma Mater. #blackhistorymonth 10/10
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