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.
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.
Moye went to New Orleans and while riding a bicycle through the midnight streets on 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.
Moye rose to local prominence after the shooting of Walter Scott by North Charleston, South Carolina, police in 2015.
[3] In 2016, Moye was arrested for disrupting a North Charleston City Council committee meeting while petitioning for a citizens board to review police actions.
[7] 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,"[8] Jelani Cobb, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, writing for the New Yorker, called him "a complex, vexing, and, to his opponents and to some portion of his admirers, an exasperating figure.
[23] In a recorded short talk he speaks of "oneness of humankind, equality of men and women, the togetherness of religion and science that just click in a way that's - oh - this is an integrated reality" and why he "embodied" himself as a Baháʼí; he said: "Baháʼu'lláh has given me the freedom to consort and be friendly with anybody of any religion of any race from anywhere on this planet because I know the oneness of human kind is a reality.
[24] The coverage of the death of Scott including mention of Moye won the Charleston Post and Courier a Pulitzer in breaking news.
[35] There was widespread public speculation that Moye's killing was related to his career as a Black Lives Matter activist (though this has been proven to not be the case).
[26] 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.
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.”[36] Divisive comments in social media have been noted in the Fairfield Mirror student newspaper associated with Fairfield University in Connecticut.
[26][39] In April 2020 art on Moye was included in an exhibition entitled Resilient by Chris “Kolpeace” Johnson at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture in Charleston, South Carolina.