Museum of African American History, National Voting Rights Museum and New Democracy Coalition present **Black Votes Matter: The Mississippi Theater of the Civil Rights Movement and Voting Rights Act.** Bob Moses’ vision of grass roots organizing led him to become a leader in the civil rights movement and Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. He initiated and organized voter registration drives, sit-ins, and Freedom Schools for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that he appreciated Moses' fresh ideas, calling his "contribution to the freedom struggle in America" an "inspiration." Nearly 40 years later, the renowned activist began organizing again, this time as teacher and founder of the national math literacy program called the Algebra Project. His work was recognized with a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, which he used to found the Algebra Project. He argues that the crisis in math literacy in poor communities is as urgent as the crisis of political access in Mississippi in 1961. Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (Photo: President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks at the signing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, via [Wikimedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 ""))
