Moore was locked up for nine days in Oregon’s Washington County Jail after being accused of first-degree sex abuse for kissing a white woman. Moore was enrolled at Portland Community College studying for an associate degree.
On the evening of Oct. 19, 2010, Moore was booked into jail for first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree kidnapping among several other charges. All for what has been concluded to be a kiss between a black man and a white woman.
Yes, kissing a white woman landed this young black student, not only in jail, but also in America circa 1910.
During the bad old days of Jim Crow, it was well known that a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, for fear of being accused of rape. Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between black men and white women were illegal. Although only 19.2 percent of the people lynched from 1882 to 1951 were even accused of rape, it was believed that lynchings were necessary to protect white women from black men. Most of the victims of lynch law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs or dismembered.
On Oct. 28, however, the Washington County grand jury that heard the case refused to indict Moore. If he had been convicted, first-degree sex abuse carries a mandatory six years in prison.
Although Sergeant Dave Thompson, a sheriff’s department spokesmen, stated that the arrest had nothing to do with race; Rob Bletko, the chief deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, would not comment on the charges.
What is known from the public record is that the entire event stemmed from Moore sharing a consensual kiss at the school on Oct. 7 with a 22-year-old white woman. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
