Muhiyidin Moye

Moye, an African-American, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York and as a teen the family moved to Hollywood, South Carolina. He attended University of South Carolina and in 2006 suffered severe burns from an arson attack at a house he was staying at. He went on to attend Winthrop University, finishing in 2011. That fall he appeared at Occupy Eugene. Back in Charleston he found and joined the Baháʼí Faith around 2014 and soon was visible in the news following the shooting of Walter Scott and being known as a Black Lives Matter activist in 2015. After some more work in 2016 Moye became involved in a February 2017 Bree Newsome speaking engagement that drew protestors and counter protestors during which he made a leap crossing police lines to take down an oversized Confederate battle flag that happened to occur during a news broadcast and so was caught on live television. A year later Moye went to New Orleans and while riding a bicycle through the midnight streets February 6, 2018, he was shot, traveled on some blocks, left his bike and called for help to which police responded and took him to the hospital. However he had lost too much blood and died in the morning.

While on a personal trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, Moye was shot and killed. At 1:30 a.m. on February 6, 2018, New Orleans police received a call about a man lying on the ground asking for help on Bienville Street. They found Moye with a gunshot wound to his thigh. A mountain bike was found nearby which had blood on it. Moye was rushed to the hospital where he died. The blood trail went for some blocks where a bullet fragment was found. As of late February, 2018, New Orleans police believe "Moye may have been the victim of an attempted armed robbery."

A community memorial service was held in February 10, 2018 by the Denmark Vesey monument also attended by city leaders. A friend said that though he was known for some of his efforts "his real work was in the community, especially with children" and invited people to Moye's "dablockup" program of action in the community while others renamed a project for an academy in development as the "Muhiyidin d'Baha Leadership Academy". Further events were announced for February 14 at Charity Missionary Baptist Church and a funeral at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church for February 15, as well as a traditional African ceremony at McLeod Plantation February 17.

Former State Senator for the Charleston area Robert Ford made a plea on his Facebook page to call to investigate the murder, saying: “As you are aware, one of our most successful activist in the Black Lives Matter Movement, Muhiyidin Elamin Moye, has been killed. He was shot at night in New Orleans, Louisiana on Tuesday, February 6, 2018. This MUST be a call to arms as Moye was contacted to help organize the Black Lives Movement in New Orleans and this seems to be a Civil Rights Action that should be further investigated by the United States Justice Department.” Divisive comments in social media have been noted in the Fairfield Mirror student newspaper associated with Fairfield University in Connecticut. Roosevelt Iglus turned himself in and plead guilty for the murder, was convicted, and is serving a 17 year sentence.

A group gathered near where Moye was shot in March 2018 handing out fliers looking for information on the shooting. The death inspired a review of the hard life of activists and their generally early deaths by a writer in the New York Times. In June a project for a youth academy was advancing in Charleston, SC.

July 25, 2018, New Orleans police arrested African-American Roosevelt Iglus with an accusation of second-degree murder after being led by a tip. Iglus was on parole related to a case from 2016 he had pled guilty to. Another charge at the arrest for the murder of Moye was possession of amphetamines which was dropped by Judge Harry Cantrell at Iglus' first arraignment for lack of probable cause.

Alfred J. Cotton III (2016). Do black lives matter in American mainstream news media? Two case studies of police-involved shootings of black men explaining a racist media environment (PhD). College Communication and Information, University of Kentucky. Retrieved February 12, 2018 .

A Bree Newsome speaking engagement was set in early February 2017 and drew protestors and counter protestors. In the situation before the leap with the Confederate oversized battle flag waving, he said "And I looked at our elders and I saw, like, fear in their eyes. And I saw them back up, almost. That was the moment for me. We're not going to pass this on another generation. Not another generation of people are going to be intimidated by this flag." Moye spoke afterwards about it saying "We have been able to experience this kind of oppression and this intimidation because we don't resist it.… And we learn how to tolerate it and we learn how to normalize it. That's what my impetus was to take down that flag" in an interview with MTV News. Both the flag waving protestor and Moye were then in a fundraising situation - the protestor's efforts had stagnated but then rose to $4,000 while Moye's raised $10,000. David Meyer Lindenberg was less impressed with the leap and wrote to suppress the fundraising for Moye.

In March 2017, following his leap for justice, a concert was arranged in Charleston, "a community festival and multicultural celebration of music, art, food, activism, and community,"

In April 2017 the Charleston City Paper asked Moye's advice on community organizing:

In December 2016 Moye appeared as part of a panel at the College of Charleston about the death of Walter Scott. The coverage of the death of Scott including mention of Moye won the Charleston Post and Courier a Pulitzer in breaking news.

Moye rose to local prominence after the shooting of Walter Scott by North Charleston, South Carolina, police in 2015. Moye arranged a meeting in which Scott's family first viewed eyewitness Feidin Santana's video of the shooting. Also in 2015, Moye met with Bernie Sanders - where Sanders said "Let me be very clear. Nobody will fight harder to end institutional racism and to reform our broken criminal justice system." Moye said "Bernie's going through his own evolution. Coming from Vermont and being in the space of white privilege that he's enjoyed, he's gonna go through an experience of learning."

His experience with the fire was called a near death experience, and later found the Baháʼí Faith in South Carolina, the second largest religion there. His mother is also a follower of the Baháʼí Faith but his father was a Nation of Islam Muslim. Moye picked up the Twitter handle @daBlockUp under the name "Muhiyidin d'Baha" in 2014 and it currently features the Baháʼí ringstone symbol.

But Moye's activism goes back at least to 2011 when he was visible at the Occupy Eugene event in October. In 2016, Moye was arrested for disrupting a North Charleston City Council committee meeting while petitioning for a citizens board to review police actions. The city later formed the Citizens Advisory Commission on Community-Police Relations. Moye was called a hero for things he did but he demurred and observed of protest tactics “much more action, a lot less social media talking and organizing on social media. A lot less getting together at marches and yelling at inanimate objects, and a lot more action and interrupting.”

Moye graduated from Winthrop University with a Masters of Arts degree in May 2011 and then went on to the Occupy Eugene event in October.

In a case of arson, in June 2006 Moye was one of the victims in the house who suffered severe burns.

Moye was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. At age 13, he moved to Hollywood, South Carolina. He attended University of South Carolina as a freshman in 2005 where he met Justin Bamberg, who became a lawyer and state lawmaker. Bamberg was the attorney for Scott's family after the shooting.

Muhiyidin El Amin Moye (April 22, 1985 – February 6, 2018) also known as Muhiyidin D'baha, was a leading Black Lives Matter activist known nationally for crossing a yellow police tape line to snatch a Confederate battle flag from a demonstrator on live television in Charleston, South Carolina in February 2017.