One of the great figures of the Civil Rights movement, a man of extraordinary courage and moral clarity, Moses had studied philosophy as an undergraduate and graduate student, before more pressing matters commanded his attention. The NYT obituary is here. Philosopher Michael Wedin (emeritus, UC Davis), who wrote me last night about his passing, kindly gave permission to share his remembrance:
Just to let you know that Bob Moses has died. It was the greatest privilege of my life to work with him in the summer of 1964 in Mississippi. The news has hit me hard, somehow I expected him to live forever. In the spring of 1964 we organized the "West Coast Civil Rights Conference" at Stanford -- sole purposes were to raise money for and recruit volunteers for the Mississippi summer project. We got MLK to keynote the thing and convinced Bob to come out, which he did by car with four of his field workers. King was the big name but the real draw was Bob Moses. Not prone to King's style of elevated rhetoric, Bob really just held a conversation with the audience. But it was riveting--five hundred in the auditorium and you could hear a pin drop. Did not talk much philosophy with him, but he did say he'd been working on Wittgenstein before he left Harvard for Mississippi. There we were involved in getting a Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation selected to challenge the regular group and the national meeting. Lost track of him after Mississippi but years later was informed by Hilary Putnam that he'd returned to Harvard to complete his Ph. D. and that Quine has given him all of his correspondence with Carnap. Won't even besgin to talk about his extraordinary work in the south.
