Moore, Archie (1913–1998)
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Image not found or type unknown Moore, Archie (1913–1998) GOLDA RUCKLE Golda Ruckle is currently a sophomore at Southern Adventist University, studying to earn her B.A. in History with a teaching licensure. Best known as the longest-reigning world light heavyweight boxing champion, Archie Moore was also an actor and founder of the Any Boy Can program. After becoming a Seventh-day Adventist in 1966, Moore energized youth- oriented community activism in the church. Early Life He was born Archibald Lee Wright, son of Thomas and Lorena Wright, on December 16, 1913 in Benoit, Mississippi. His father, a farm laborer, walked out on the family when Archie was only 18 months old.1 As a result of his mother’s young age and inability to provide for her children, Archie was raised by an uncle and aunt, Cleveland and Willie Pearl Moore, in St. Louis, Missouri. To avoid questions, his surname was changed to Moore.2 He was raised in a stable, upright home, but after his Uncle Cleveland died, Archie, then 14 years old, became involved with a gang in his neighborhood and began to sink into delinquency.3 His first theft was taking a pair of oil lamps from home and selling them to buy a set of boxing gloves.4 He continued developing a habit of thievery until he was caught stealing seven dollars from a streetcar. He was sentenced to three years in the Missouri Reform School in Booneville but was released after 22 months for good behavior.5 It was in reform school that Archie decided that he would make an honest living for the rest of his life. Upon his release, he decided that his best route as a “young Negro” would be to pursue a career in boxing, as there were not many promising opportunities for men of his position at the time. Boxing Career Moore got his first shot at boxing after joining the Civilian Conservation Corps around 1933, working for the forestry division at a camp in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. The captain of the camp permitted him to organize a team to participate in Golden Gloves competitions. Many of these fights exposed Moore to dangerous racially charged situations. In one such fight, after Moore knocked out a white boxer named Bill Richardson, “the boxing team was chased out of town and followed back to camp by a line of cars loaded with angry ‘townies.’” They dispersed only when the camp captain threatened them with a submachine gun.”6 Moore began his career in organized boxing in 1935 by knocking out “Piano Man” Jones in two rounds, and ended it by knocking out Mike DiBiase in three rounds in March 1963, a few months away from his fiftieth birthday.7 Throughout the course of his 28-year career in boxing, “Moore fought [a total of] 234 times, compiling a record of 199 victories, 26 defeats, 8 draws and 1 no contest. He registered 145 knockouts, (which is thought to be the most by any professional), according to The Ring.”8 He is credited with techniques seen “in the repertory of Muhammad Ali and are found in many of today's fighters -- an ability to hit with one hand while his other dangled at his side, and then backpedal. That lashing style, along with his ring savvy, earned him the nickname The Mongoose.”9 Although he had one of the longest careers in boxing history, incompetent or crooked managers, as well as racial prejudice, hampered his efforts to gain prestige in the United States. He did some international tours, one of the most successful in Australia. But the struggle to advance in the boxing world under the control of subpar managers took a toll on his personal life. He married Mattie Chapman in 1940, shortly after moving to San Diego, California, but was forced under contract by his manager to leave on his Australian tour without her only three days after their wedding.10 Not only did that marriage fail, Moore would marry three more times throughout the 1940s and early 1950s with similar results.11 Archie Moore became a well-known figure in American popular culture after winning the light heavyweight title in 1952 at the age of 39, when most boxers are past their prime. He then successfully defended the title nine times, holding it longer than any other champion in that division.12 In 1955 Moore married his fifth wife, Joan Hardy, with whom he lived until his death in 1998. They raised eight children together – five of their own, two from previous marriages, and one adopted son.13 After Boxing Even before leaving the ring, Moore played the role of Jim in the film adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960). He subsequently cultivated an acting career with some success for a few years. He appeared in The Carpetbaggers (1964), The Fortune Cookie (1966), and Breakheart Pass (1976), and in the television dramas Wagon Train in 1962, and Perry Mason in 1963, among other roles.14 Moore saw himself first and foremost as a role model for young boys in circumstances similar to those he grew up with, and took this perspective with him in his acting roles. In the filming of Huckleberry Finn, for example, he insisted on cutting racial slurs from the script, explaining to the director, “How could I play this part when it would cause my people to drop their heads in shame in a theater?”15 He carried a sense of responsibility and purpose to uplift the youth of his community throughout his life, was a strong proponent of the nonviolent civil rights movement, and cultivated a reputation as a public speaker. He prioritized speaking to underprivileged communities and approached the appointments with humor and warmth. He was well received in penal institutions because he “had been down that road” and could speak to the unique experience of being incarcerated.16 The “Any Boy Can” Program Moore’s passion for youth led him to start what may be his most meaningful legacy – the Any Boy Can (ABC) program. In his autobiography, Moore stated that the idea for the ABC club began to form in his mind while he was in reform school as a teenager, but he never had the time to develop a program until the years following his retirement.17 The Any Boy Can program focused on instilling dignity and patriotism by teaching principles of moral, spiritual, and physical self-defense. Moore accomplished this through boxing lessons and club activities with lessons built around basic Christian principles.18 His first successful branch of the program came about because of opportunities related to vandalism complaints in a low-income area of Vallejo, California in 1965. The vandalism in the area was costing a new country club over $7,500 a month, and the hostile climate was reducing property value in the city.19 A local savings and loan company and other businesses called on Moore to help fix the problem in hopes that the boxing champion could give restless young men something to do and allay some of the unrest in the area.20 Archie started with only a punching bag in his front yard, and slowly built up his program to around 400 members, with more youth intensely loyal to the club than those who remained skeptical outside of it. The experimental program took the vandalism cost “from $7,500 a month to $5-10 a month at the most” and, according to Moore, during the five years “since the ABC was established only one of the four hundred Vallejo members stepped foot in a juvenile hall.”21 With these results, Moore gained ample publicity and was able to promote his program across the nation, as well as internationally. He received commendations from the United States Navy and was called upon to testify before a Congressional committee looking into the causes of violent disturbances in American cities. He was also called to work with the Boy Scouts of America as a community relations specialist, tasked with “reaching down into the ghetto where scouting has been unable to reach . the less fortunate black boy.”22 Adventism: Conversion and Impact Moore’s first encounters with Adventism came in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, when at the encouragement of a mutual friend, Pastor T. M. Fountain reached out to Moore and gave him a Bible study. Not long afterwards, Pastor Eric C. Ward conducted a major evangelistic effort in San Diego, where Moore was residing. The effort centered on church members sharing the message in homes using the Go Tell lay evangelism Bible study set. Church members thought that Moore would be baptized and join the Adventist faith through this effort, but despite numerous calls and visits, he never expressed the desire to be baptized. Not long afterwards, when the civil disturbances of 1965 in the Watts area of Los Angeles were reaching their peak and Moore was beginning the ABC program in response to vandalism in Vallejo, the Adventist church began a social uplift program in the black community as well. Soon after the community action program began, Byron R. Spears conducted an evangelistic series in Vallejo. Moore began attending with a few of his boys from the ABC program, and it was then that he made the decision to take Bible lessons and be baptized.23 After completing the Go Tell program, Archie Moore was baptized on April 3, 1966.24 In his 1971 autobiography, Moore testified: “After I made the change from Baptist to Seventh-Day Adventist, I was living clean, cleaner than I ever lived in my life, because I wanted to be right.