James Viafara

Thank you to my fellow Council Members for their innovative programs and insights. We as young people have the power to shape the future, and I’m honored to have learned alongside mission-driven organizations like Thrivent and DoSomething.

Thrivent and DoSomething Strategic’s teams have been a driving force behind the impact made in my community, and I am truly uplifted by the mobilization that has grown from our activation. Navigating the resources and learning about your work has been an enriching and transformative experience.

A heartfelt thank you to DoSomething Strategic & DoSomething, Max Steinman, Walker Post, and Chenoah Porter-Blount, as well as the Thrivent Financial Team—Emily Hendren, Lisa Thompson, and Mary Hurst—for your forward-thinking methodologies and inspiring initiatives.

We have seen the transformation of the platforms firsthand, and it has been a confirmation of empowerment found in our collective visions for the future.

I have learned great lessons from council members across the country who reimagined how Gen Z engages with Thrivent’s Action Teams Platform and Volunteer Experiences.

Over the previous months as a Youth Advisory Council member, I have led my own Thrivent Action Team project, activating my institution and mobilizing the youth in my community.

I am grateful to have been selected for the continuation of DoSomething Strategic's partnership with Thrivent Financial after their national hackathon through the Thrivent Youth Advisory Council.

Their efforts centered on the perspectives of youth and provided DoSomething members with a platform to deconstruct adversity, leading us to find resolutions to pressing issues affecting youth in the United States.

In January, DoSomething Strategic introduced me to an insightful hackathon addressing innovative strategies for social change in the current generation with Thrivent Financial.

Revitalizing and affirming:

I’m thrilled to announce that this summer, I concluded my time as a Youth Advisory Council Member for Thrivent Financial, a partnership with DoSomething Strategic, the Social Impact Consultancy.

Myrlie and Medgar Evers sitting together on a couch

“The NAACP, the movement … they were the ‘other woman’ in my life,” Myrlie Evers-Williams said of her marriage to Medgar Evers. “So when it comes down to love and working together, you make a decision as to what you can tolerate and what you can build on.”

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Harry T. and Harriette Moore Harry T. and Harriette Moore were a Florida couple killed for their involvement in the civil rights movement.

I am highly encouraging all to remember the legacy of the Moores family and their contributions to the struggle for human rights. The NAACP's Official "History Explained" of the Moores family can be found in the portal inserted in this post.

Harry T. Moore was the first NAACP member and official to be assassinated for civil rights activism; the couple is the only husband and wife to be killed for the movement.

The assassination of the Moores caused a national and international outcry, with protests registered at the United Nations against violence in the South. The NAACP held several rallies in several states (i.e., New York).

On August 16, 2006, Florida Attorney General and later the 44th Governor of the State of Florida, Hon. Charlie Crist, announced the completion of their 20-month investigation. The investigation resulted in the naming of four now-dead suspects as the alleged perpetrators.

In 2005, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement led an investigation of the Moore bombing to include excavation of their home site in a search for new forensic evidence.

During his 28 years as Lake County Sheriff, McCall was investigated several times for civil rights violations and inmate abuse and was tried for murder, but was never convicted.

In 1972, Lake County Sheriff McCall lost his position seeking an eighth term shortly after he had been acquitted of the murder 1972 of Tommy J. Vickers, a mentally disabled black prisoner who died in his custody.

Rumors alleged that McCall was behind the bombing, but both an extensive FBI investigation at the time and additional later separate FBI and Justice Department investigations have failed to produce any evidence linking McCall in any way.

Hon. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital in Sanford, Florida. On January 3, 1952, Mrs. Moore passed away nine days afterward at the same hospital from fatal wounds.

On that Christmas night, 1951, Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette Moore, were harmed and fatally injured. As the local hospital in Titusville, Florida, would not treat Blacks, the Moore family was transported to Fernald-Laughton hospital in Sanford, Florida, about 30 miles to the northwest.

Six weeks after calling for McCall's removal, Mr. Harry Moore and Mrs. Harriette Simms-Moore were physically harmed and severely impacted when a bomb exploded under their bedroom in Mims, Brevard County, on Christmas night in 1951.

Walter Irvin survived the wounds; he later claimed to NAACP and FBI officials that the sheriff shot both him and Sam Shepherd in cold blood. Mr. Harry Moore called for an indictment against Sheriff McCall and called on Florida Governor Fuller Warren to suspend McCall from office.

Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall was responsible for transporting Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin to the new trial venue in November 1951. The Sheriff claimed that the two men, while handcuffed, attacked him in an escape attempt. The Sheriff shot them both, and Shepherd died at the scene.

In April 1951, a legal team headed by Thurgood Marshall won the appeal of Shepherd and Irvin's convictions before the U.S. Supreme Court. This development granted a new trial to be scheduled.

As the Executive Director of the Florida NAACP, Harry T. Moore, organized a campaign against the charges for what he considered the wrongful convictions of the three men. With NAACP support, appeals were pursued.

A racially discriminatory group of over 400 left the hearing to burn buildings in the Black district of Groveland. The U.S. National Guard was called, and six days were required to restore order.

In July 1949, Mr. Moore became involved in the Groveland rape case. The case related to four young black men who were accused of raping a white woman.

The judge sentenced 16-year-old Charles Greenlee to life in prison; Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin were sentenced to death.

During his first two years, he built the Florida NAACP to a peak of over 10,000 members in 63 branches. In January 1949, however, the NAACP national office doubled annual dues from $1 to $2, and membership plummeted all over the country.

His good friend, John Gilbert, principal of the Cocoa Junior High School, courageously volunteered as the plaintiff. Although the Gilbert case was eventually lost in state court, it spawned a dozen other federal lawsuits in Florida that eventually led to equalized salaries.