Robert Moses, born on this day in 1935, was an American educator and civil rights activist who led SNCC work on voter education and registration in Mississippi and co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

During the civil rights era, Moses led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) committee on voter education and registration in Mississippi. Moses was also vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War, and explicitly linked his opposition to the war to the civil rights struggle.

Later in life, Moses ran the Algebra Project, a continued effort to improve math education in poor communities with the goal of preparing students for the modern workforce. At the time of the Project's founding, many middle schools, especially those serving non-white communities, did not teach algebra at all. Moses stated - "We are growing the equivalent of sharecroppers in our inner cities."

"I was taught about the denial of the right to vote behind the Iron Curtain in Europe; I never knew that there was denial of the right to vote behind a Cotton Curtain here in the United States."

- Bob Moses