Robert 'Bob' Moses

Born and raised in Harlem, N.Y., Moses went to the South to join the fight for civil rights in the early 1960s, ultimately becoming a central figure in the movement.

As a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi, Moses worked to hand political power to Black people through voting education and voter registration drives. He continued to push education to the forefront of the civil rights agenda when

From 1969 to 1976, he taught mathematics in Tanzania in East Africa. Upon returning to the United States, he went on to get his doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University.

Believing in math literacy as a critical part of a child’s education, he started the Algebra Project in 1982, a math training program focused on empowering students from underfunded public schools and poor communities. Hundreds of American classrooms have taken part in his program’s trainings.

“He spoke quietly, he didn’t give big sermons like Martin Luther King,” Taylor Branch, a civil rights-era historian said in 2013. “He didn’t seek out dramatic confrontations like the Freedom Riders and the sit-ins, but he did inspire a broad range of grassroots leadership.”