He was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Amite County and sought to enfranchise African-Americans by encouraging voter registration.
[2] Mississippi's constitution of 1890 had politically disfranchised black Americans, creating barriers to voter registration such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses to exclude them from voting.
[1][3] Upon Moses's arrival in Mississippi, and amid increasing civil rights activity, the white community attempted to deter blacks with threats of reprisal, harassment, and intimidation; in his reports to John Doar of the United States Department of Justice, Moses expressed dire concern for Lee's life.
[1] Hurst later claimed self-defense to a coroner's jury—saying that, in an argument over debts, Lee had attacked him with a tire iron, and his gun had fired in the ensuing skirmish.
Ten days after his death, 115 black high school students marched through McComb, Mississippi, in protest of his murder.