Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: In the early 1900s a two-acre parcel of land north of LaGrange Church and Cemetery was given to the Mims colored community for a cemetery. Earliest marked graves are dated 1903; many were unmarked. During the late 1800s both blacks and whites worshiped at LaGrange Community Church. In 1894, after organizing their own congregation, St. James Colored Missionary Baptist Church acquired land in Mims and in 1904 built their own church. In June 1913, trustees of that church purchased this parcel from the East Coast Cattle Company for use as a cemetery, then referred to as the Mims Colored Cemetery. Many of North Brevard’s pioneering black families rest in this hallowed ground with family names of Abrams, Bell, Brothers, Brown, Campbell, Cuyler, Grant, Gibson, Highsmith, McKenzie, Mitchell, Seigler, Simms, Strickland, Warren and Williams. Most noted ate the graves of Harry T. Moore and Harriette V. Simms Moore, Florida civil rights activists. Moore was chapter president of the Brevard County National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and later NAACP Florida Convention president/state coordinator. On Christmas Eve, 1951, the Moores were killed when their home, located near this site, was bombed.