The Moses family and the Cambridge Community Foundation have launched the Bob Moses Fund for Education and Organizing by awarding $75,000 grants to two national changemakers and $15,000 grants to two local movement builders who embody the community-focused leadership and spirit of Bob Moses. Among the recipients is Ma’s House, a residence and communal art space for Black, Indigenous and people of color, founded by Shinnecock tribe member Jeremy Dennis, in honor of his grandmother, Loretta A. Silva.
“Ma’s House is honored to uplift the spirit of Bob Moses by celebrating community and family, and by inspiring forthright dialogue around equity through the art we support and create,” said Dennis. “The Shinnecock Indian Nation, one of the oldest self-governing tribes in New York, is rooted in tradition and this grant will allow us to more deeply explore those traditions. We’re very excited to nurture and elevate the artists in our community with the support of the Bob Moses Fund.”
As a young educator, Moses and fellow civil rights activists risked their lives and joined sharecroppers and day workers in Mississippi to forge a historic movement to register Black people to vote. Their collective actions paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and for Moses’s lifelong commitment to creating an equitable democracy and to ending the historical inequities and disparities of our country’s educational system.
In establishing the fund, the Moses family draws inspiration from Moses’s experiences in the nascent civil rights movement of the 1960s, which played a pivotal role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The fund is led by the Moses family, including Dr. Janet Moses and Maisha Moses, who represent more than 50 years of experience in education and organizing. They are joined by Cambridge Community Foundation President Geeta Pradhan, a leading community development expert, and they will work together with other visionaries in the field to guide the fund’s grantmaking and programmatic vision.
Staff Writer on Mar 20, 2023