Crossing the River Jordan Award

Previous Winners

Robert Moses (1997)
Bob Moses is a central figure in the struggle for civil rights and educational equity. From his valiant efforts organizing voter registration in Mississippi in the early 1960s, to his current work with the Algebra Project supporting math education in inner-city schools, Bob Moses has always been dedicated to ensuring that all Americans have the same opportunities for individual rights and for full participation in society.

Bob Moses was born and raised in New York City, attended Hamilton College in upstate New York, and received his masters degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1957. He returned to New York and taught mathematics at the prestigious Horace Mann School from 1958 through 1961. He soon became deeply involved in the civil rights movement, and eventually left teaching to work full time on the struggle for racial equality. As a field secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Moses directed the Council of Federated Organizations, and was one of the primary organizers of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that challenged the Mississippi regulars at the 1964 Democratic Party convention. In 1966, to avoid being drafted for a war to which he was vehemently opposed, Moses moved to Canada and, from there, to Africa.

From 1969 to 1975, Moses worked for the Tanzanian Ministry of Education, chairing the math department at the Samé School. When he returned to the United States, he went back to Harvard, and began pursuit of a PhD while volunteering as a math assistant in his daughter’s school. Moses became concerned that so many students, especially poor and minority students, were being steered away from the higher-level math necessary for admission to college and high-paying careers. Since algebra is the gateway to higher mathematics, Moses focused on creating ways to prepare disadvantaged students to take algebra and support them in the subject. By getting students over the initial hurdle, he argued, it was possible to vastly increase the range of opportunities available to them.

Bob Moses received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 1982. The funds enabled him to pursue his ideas about algebra as a full-time middle school math teacher while laying the groundwork for the organization that became The Algebra Project. The mission of The Algebra Project is to provide methods and encouragement to teach algebra to underprivileged youth, and, at the same time, organize communities to demand greater educational opportunity, especially in math, for all children. The Project has been operating with great success in a number of communities.

For his efforts on behalf of disadvantaged children, Bob Moses received the Crossing the River Jordan Award in a ceremony at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. At the end of his eloquent and inspiring acceptance speech, he lead the entire audience in singing a traditional spiritual about triumphing over adversity.