Get-out-the-vote effort
Moore describes how he and others helped a Native American, Early Bullard, earn election to a judgeship. He used a straightforward get-out-the-vote strategy, registering voters and asking for their assurance that they would vote on election day. Moore also recalls that he bussed students to integrating schools, and that while the process was tense, it did not explode into violence.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with James Moore, October 16, 2003. Interview U-0011. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MALINDA MAYNOR:
-
Well, go back and tell us a little bit about how you all organized to
get Mr. Early elected.
- JAMES MOORE:
-
Well, going back to judge, the recorder's judge, we organized by roads.
Each road in the Prospect community was assigned to a certain person,
and of course we gave ourselves a lot of credit, and we did this by
visiting house to house, being assured people were registered to vote
and being assured if they registered that they voted on election day. It
was carried out well. I don't think we, after this the elections since
then, we've never gone to that extent. [coughs] Excuse me. But it was
carried out well, and it brought about then after this, this was in 1954
and by 1960 we had integration to come. The school here at Prospect, its
boundaries extended to the Hoke County line up kind of northeast of
Maxton, and that was where it was expected that we might have a problem
with integration picking up the different students. They had a bus, an
extra large bus at Prospect that they gave this route to, and it would
pick up the students that were expected to be integrated. It went up in
that direction, and it dropped off the primary students at Oxendine
School. But anyway, the principal Mr. Danford Dial he came to me, and he
said I want to know that I have a man on that bus. He says, will you
drive for me if you don't drive but for two or three months which I
agreed to. I agreed to drive and I drove for three months and told him
I'd had enough of it. We did have incidents that could have turned into
violence. However it didn't. I'm not giving myself credit for that. It
was handled somewhere it wasn't. But it almost
became violent at the school, the people in the community. So it was
pretty rough time however we came through it without anybody getting
hurt of which I'm glad.
