Henry Lee Moon (1901 – June 7, 1985) was an American journalist, writer and civil rights activist.

Early life and career

Moon was born in Pendleton, South Carolina in 1901 but spent much of his life in Cleveland, Ohio. His father Roddy K. Moon established the Cleveland branch of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

in 1912. Moon attended

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

where he served as the editor of the school's ''University Journal''. He then received a master's degree in journalism from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. Moon's goal at the time was to become the first black journalist to work for a white-owned newspaper. However, in 1925 he went to work in public relations at the

Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was de ...

instead. In 1931, he achieved his dream of becoming a newspaperman when he was offered a job at the African-American weekly ''

The Amsterdam News The ''Amsterdam News'' (also known as ''New York Amsterdam News'') is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by s ...

''. He moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and began writing book reviews and essays for the publication. The same year, he collaborated with fellow ''News'' journalist

Ted Poston Ted Poston (July 4, 1906 – January 11, 1974) was an American journalist and author. He was one of the first African-American journalists to work on a mainstream white-owned newspaper, the ''New York Post''. Poston is often referred to as the "De ...

on a series of articles focusing on capital crimes. The two men became roommates and remained best friends for the rest of their lives. In 1932, they traveled to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

with

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

and Moon's future wife Mollie Lewis to make an anti-segregation film called ''Black and White''. The film was cancelled at the last minute by the

Mezhrabpomfilm Mezhrabpomfilm (russian: Межрабпомфильм), from the word ''film'', and the Russian acronym for Workers International Relief or Workers International Aid (russian: Международная рабочая помощь, was a German-Ru ...

studio, causing Moon to have a lifelong disillusionment with the Communists. Unbeknownst to Moon, engineer

Hugh Lincoln Cooper Hugh Lincoln Cooper (April 28, 1865–June 24, 1937Dnieper Dam if the Soviet government did not halt the production of the film, which he viewed as un-American. After he returned to the US, Moon got a job with the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

under

Harold L. Ickes Harold LeClair Ickes ( ; March 15, 1874 – February 3, 1952) was an American administrator, politician and lawyer. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for nearly 13 years from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold th ...

and continued to write for ''The Amsterdam News''. Moon was fired from the paper after he encouraged the staff to join

The Newspaper Guild The NewsGuild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's business practice ...

union. He then went to work for the

Federal Writers' Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It ...

until federal funding for it was ended in 1939. Moon applied to the ''New York Times'', but was rejected. He found work in Washington, D.C. working for

Robert C. Weaver Robert Clifton Weaver (December 29, 1907 – July 17, 1997) was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States secretary of housing and urban development (HUD) from 1966 to 1968, when the depart ...

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

Black Cabinet The Black Cabinet, or Federal Council of Negro Affairs or Black Brain Trust, was the informal term for a group of African Americans who served as public policy advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in his te ...

as a race relations advisor. After the war, he worked as an organizer for the PAC of the CIO trade union. In 1948, Moon began working for the

as their public relations director. Moon held the position until 1974. During his tenure at the NAACP, he promoted voting rights and encouraged the organization to work harder to elect politicians friendly to their cause. While at the NAACP, he also wrote the book ''Balance of Power'' and edited a collection of

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...

' writings.

Death and legacy

Moon died on June 7, 1985 at

Mount Sinai Medical Center Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Si ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. In 1988, the library at the NAACP's headquarters in Baltimore was renamed in his memory.

Personal life

Moon married Mollie Lewis on August 13, 1938. The couple became well-known for throwing integrated society parties that allowed black and white New Yorkers to meet and connect with each other. Their reputation was satirized in

Chester Himes Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 – November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works, some of which have been filmed, include ''If He Hollers Let Him Go'', published in 1945, and the Harlem Detective series of novels for which he is best ...

' 1961 novel ''Pinktoes''.

Works

*1948 ''Balance of Power: The Negro Vote'' ( Doubleday) *1957 ''The New Subversion of the Fifteenth Amendment'' (Howard University) *1972 ''The Emerging Thought of W.E.B. DuBois'', editor (

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moon, Henry Lee People from Cleveland African-American journalists 20th-century American journalists American male journalists NAACP activists 1901 births 1985 deaths 20th-century African-American people