The Legacy of Audley "Queen Mother" Moore and Her Battlecry for Reparations

If you aren’t already familiar with the civil rights leadership of Audley “Queen Mother” Moore, the Schomburg Center's recently digitized pamphlet entitled, “Why Reparations,” could stand to represent the core of her lifelong efforts to seek reparative justice for the descendants of people enslaved in America, and those of the African diaspora. As historian Ashley D. Farmer puts it, “indeed, if Rosa Parks was the mother of the civil rights movement, then Audley Moore midwifed modern black nationalism. She adopted an expansive vision of radical black liberation that set her apart from her civil rights counterparts and linked her struggle with that of other radicals around the world.”

The pamphlet itself, published in 1963, is a “battlecry for the economic and social freedom of more than 25 million descendants of American slaves.” At the time, its publishing coincided with the centennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, making it an opportune reflection on the impact of enslavement.

Actionizing this cause, Moore organized the Reparations Committee for United States Slaves’ Descendants, Inc., which consisted of five members seeking “relief in money damages for the victims of these injustices with which to begin a program of rehabilitation” (Moore, 1963). 

The text introduces the case for reparations by providing historical context and the lineage of damages rooted in American slavery. Moore notes the importance of acknowledging and rectifying the compounded injuries faced by descendants of enslaved people in America. It includes an alphabetized list of racial grievances and atrocities—the generational byproducts of slavery.

The text goes on to detail the claim for reparations filed in the State of California by the committee on December 20, 1962, listing several causes of action for the filing. The first of which is a lawsuit on behalf of “approximately 25 million Americans of African descent, whose antecedents and ancestors before them, until 1863, were held in cruel and inhuman slavery” (Moore, 1963). The second “cause of action calls attention to ‘the unjust enrichment of and to said ‘owners’” referring to enslavers, and the generational benefits of the free and forced labor of other human beings, who were considered their property. Lastly, the third cause of action attends to the “fact that Slaves and their descendants have contributed to the wealth of the United States and at the same time remained impoverished economically, weakened culturally, and demeaning socially” (Moore, 1963). 

While Moore’s civil rights leadership is largely omitted from the canon of historical icons, we’re still able to gain insight into what inspired her life’s work by way of the groundbreaking Black Women Oral History Project. Conducted during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the project was spearheaded by Dr. Letitia Woods Brown via Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. Here at the Schomburg, we hold the complete set of transcripts in our Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books division (viewable onsite by appointment only). It’s an invaluable recollection of her childhood and early years in community organizing around civil rights, as told in her own words.

Today’s society undeniably reflects the historical consequences Queen Mother Moore stressed in this pamphlet, and her justifications for reparations are just as poignantly relevant as they were in 1963.

"Without preferential treatment the Negro will never be on equal terms with white America. The white American has a 344 year start on the descendants of American slaves. They must, therefore, have special or preferential treatment to catch up” —Audley "Queen Mother" Moore