Maurice Moyer


Maurice J. Moyer was an African-American Christian minister from Delaware who was a civil rights who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1955, he was assigned to start 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, and returned to Chattanooga where he graduated from Howard High School. He enrolled in the Navy and served from 1938 to 1945.
He attended Lincoln University, Lincoln Theological Seminary, and Princeton Seminary. He had joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in 1947.
He founded the Community Presbyterian Church - the 1st 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 1963-4, 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Moyer fought against the Delaware Innkeepers Law which allowed proprietors to refuse service to anyone, which was revoked in 1963. He was instrumental in getting the first African-American to be hired by Diamond State Telephone.
He died on 6 March 2012 at the Christiana Hospital. Upon his death, Governor Jack Markell ordered flags in Wilmington and New Castle County lowered in honor of the longtime civil rights leader.

Other roles

Maurice Moyer married to Vivian Cleopatra on 13 October 1944. He had two sons: Thomas Jerome and Norman Gayraud.

Places named after him