On Christmas Eve, 1951, central Florida civil rights activists Harry and Harriette Moore were assassinated via bomb blast by Orlando members of the Ku Klux Klan, in their home. The married couple became America's first civil rights martyrs. Robert W. Fieseler is a journalist, scholar and the author of "American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives," a book published in 2025 with newly discovered details about the assassination.
Image: Harry T. Moore Cultural Complex.
Craig Pittman is the award-winning author of Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country, The Scent of Scandal, Cat Tale, Manatee Insanity and The State You’re In, and co-author of Paving Paradise. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him “the most destructive force on campus.” Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature.
