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Charles H. Moore was dignified in appearance and so well-educated — the first black graduate of Amherst College in New England — he easily commanded respect among white leaders of Greensboro from the 1870s to 1930s.

He had the energy and know-how to accomplish improvement in the city's black community.

As a comparison, his white counterpart at the time was Charles Duncan McIver. McIver had helped get the state to approve a college for white women, now UNCG, and McIver gets credit as its founder.

But Moore deserves equal ranking at what's now N.C. A&T. At a time when black and white people rarely teamed up, Moore organized a bi racial committee within the Chamber of Commerce, and he was named chairman. The group lobbied the legislature to award Greensboro a planned new state college for black students.

Moore, born in North Carolina during the slavery era in 1853 , deserves to be considered A&T's founder as much as McIver does at UNCG.

Ethel Arnett , the late Greensboro historian who wrote a book about for whom Greensboro schools are named, said that it was a proud day when white dentist, D.W.C. Benbow — who served on Moore's committee, handed Moore a resolution from the chamber and city that said:

"Resolved: that we will furnish 25 acres of land, within two miles of the courthouse, and not less than eight thousand dollars to be paid by Jan. 1, 1892, and with the guarantee ... to vote an appropriation by the city to pay $7,000 additional by June 1, 1893."

This resolution resulted from Moore's tireless work and traveling to gather support for Greensboro as the school's site. Perhaps he had learned how the General Assembly worked as a boy living in Raleigh. He sold peanuts and ginger snaps to lawmakers in the rotunda between the House and Senate chambers.

The legislature accepted Greensboro's bid over bids from five other cities and the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race.

"From that day," writes Arnett, "it has been generally conceded that Charles Moore was the person most responsible for locating the college in Greensboro. This acquisition has been pronounced as one of Greensboro's wisest accomplishments."

With more than 10,000 students, several thousand faulty and staff, A&T has become a major contributor to the city's cultural, economic, social and sports scene.

Yet, more than 100 years after the school's beginning, few speak of Moore as founder.

Some assume the honor belongs to James B. Dudley. Dudley's name stands out on campus. The former administration building bears his name. So does the street in front of it and the neighborhood around it. So does Dudley High School, founded in 1929 for black students.

In fact, Dudley didn't arrive until A&T was four years old. Granted, his long tenure as president transformed the school into a genuine college.

But he wasn't its founder or even its first president. The first president was John Crosby, in 1892.

Crosby's appointment devastated Moore, who wanted the job. He had resigned as chairman of the bi racial committee after it was certain Greensboro would get the school. He knew he couldn't, in fairness, lead the committee that would choose the president.

Big mistake.

For reasons unclear, the man who replaced Moore as chairman didn't like him. Maybe the new leader felt outclassed. Moore had been the first black graduate of a prestigious northern white college (one classmate was future president Calvin Coolidge).

Moore, who knew Latin and Greek, was so smart that when he came to Greensboro in 1878 to lead the state's first graded black public school, he made an almost perfect score on the exam required of future teachers, black and white.

After the committee chose Crosby, it gave Moore the vice presidency as a morsel. Moore and Crosby feuded. Crosby abolished Moore's job after four months and made him a professor in the English Department. But then Crosby fired him from that job. Both men were said to have been strong-headed.

When Dudley, who like Moore had been born in Wilmington, became president in 1896 upon Crosby's ouster, he rehired Moore the next year as bursar and English professor.

Arnett paraphrases an observer at the time who theorized Dudley summoned Moore "because it appeared to be difficult for the college to get along with Professor Moore and equally difficult to get along without him."

Moore apparently paid little attention to segregation dividing black and white people by the turn of the 20th century. A 1928 city directory shows Moore as the only black resident on former Mebane Street downtown. By then, residential patterns in the city were rigidly segregated.

It's not clear how long Moore stayed at A&T. In 1917 , he became supervisor of the building of Rosenwald schools in North Carolina. Philanthropist Julius Rosenwald , a top executive with Sears Roebuck, spent millions building schools for black children throughout the South. Guilford County had a Rosenwald School in the old Terra Cotta community near Pomona.

Moore retired at 70 in 1923, but continued teaching when needed in the public schools. He also led a drive that raised enough money to convince the Lunsford Richardson family to donate additional money to build a hospital for black people. It became L. Richardson Memorial Hospital on Benbow Road.

The founding of A&T and helping create a black hospital are just two of Moore's accomplishments. When he first came to Greensboro to be principal of the black graded school, 175 students were squeezed into St. James Presbyterian Church downtown.

Moore persuaded the city school officials to build a new school for black people, the Percy Street School. It stood until the 1937 and was replaced by the Charles H. Moore Elementary School beside Lindsay Street. The school building is now the Charles H. Moore Research Center at A&T.

In the 1950s, A&T named a gym after Moore. Prior to this, the college had awarded him an honorary doctorate for his long years of service.

Moore also left a mark at Bennett College, where he began teaching in 1885 after leaving Percy Street School. At the time a black co-ed school, Bennett had always had white presidents. Moore convinced the school's supporter, the northern Methodist Episcopal Church , to appoint the first black president, Dr. Charles Grandison.

Alas, the job perhaps should have gone to Moore, who had plenty of years left. He died at 99 in 1952 in New York.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 373-7081 or jim.schlosser@news-record.com