Editing Cecil B Moore (section)

== Girard College Campaign ==

Moore's most significant campaign targeted Girard College, the institution whose 1848 will restricted admission to "poor white male orphans." The school's location in North Philadelphia, surrounded by a ten-foot wall that separated it from the Black neighborhood outside, made its exclusion both visible and symbolic. Moore's campaign, beginning in 1965, combined legal challenges with direct action that brought national attention to Philadelphia's segregation.<ref name="countryman"/>

The protests he organized—pickets that continued for years, civil disobedience that resulted in arrests, rallies that drew thousands—maintained pressure that legal proceedings alone could not generate. His willingness to be arrested, to face violence from opponents, and to endure criticism from those who opposed his methods demonstrated commitment that inspired supporters. The campaign's success in 1968, when courts ordered Girard College's desegregation, validated tactics that critics had condemned.<ref name="wolfinger"/>

His other campaigns addressed employment discrimination in the construction trades, police brutality in Black neighborhoods, and economic exclusion throughout Philadelphia's institutions. His confrontational approach, which made him enemies among white Philadelphia's establishment and among cautious Black leaders, achieved results that polite petitioning had not accomplished. His eventual removal from the NAACP presidency, engineered by national leadership unhappy with his independence, demonstrated both his effectiveness and the limits of his approach within organizational structures.<ref name="countryman"/>