Civil rights activist (1918–2012)
Maurice J. Moyer (August 8, 1918 – March 6, 2012) was an African-American Christian minister from Delaware and a civil rights advocate who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. In 1955, he started Delaware's first black Presbyterian church.
Biography.
Moyer was a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was the son of Charles Raymond and Flora Adelia Moyer. At the age of 4, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, later returning to Chattanooga where he graduated from Howard High School. He served in the Navy from 1938 to 1945.
He attended Lincoln University, Lincoln Theological Seminary (graduated in 1949), and Princeton Seminary. He joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in 1947.
He founded the Community Presbyterian Church, the first black Presbyterian Church in Delaware, on Rogers Road in New Castle in 1955, and served as the church's pastor for 46 years, retiring in 1998. In 1963–1964, he was the first black moderator of the New Castle Presbytery.
Moyer fought against the Delaware Innkeepers Law, which allowed proprietors to refuse service to anyone; it was revoked in 1963. He was instrumental in getting the first African-American hired by Diamond State Telephone (now Verizon Delaware).
He died on March 6, 2012, at the Christiana Hospital. Upon his death, Governor Jack Markell ordered flags in Wilmington and New Castle County lowered in his honor.
Private life.
Moyer married Vivian Cleopatra on 13 October 1944. He had two sons: Thomas Jerome (1947) and Norman Gayraud (1950).