A 17-year-old Moore decided to take a drive to a rival high school just outside of Houston with some friends. Moore thought they were going to pick up some girls, but others in the group had other plans.Β
βWe get there, park, they get out, they beat up this dude, and they take his (band) instruments,β Moore remembers. βEverybody gets back in the car, we go back to our own campus, and they pawn these instruments.βΒ
Suddenly, Moore and two others were facing second-degree robbery charges β a felony. βThey said I was the mastermind behind it,β he said. βGranted, there were about 15 of us, and somehow, out of the 15, only three of us got in trouble. I think the reason the other kids pinned it on me is because they thought, βoh, Chas is a good kid. This is his first time getting in trouble,β so they thought I wouldnβt get as harsh a sentence.β
He got eight yearsβ probation and a felony conviction.Β
βThe judge literally told me, βI know youβre a good kid, and you probably didnβt do this, but you were with the wrong people at the wrong time, and I do want to teach you a lesson,ββ Moore recalled.Β
praise Black women who trusted me a little bit
βAt the time, I accepted that. Eight years probation is still a better deal than a lot of 17-18-year-old Black men get in Fort Bend County,β he said. But over time, he came to realize how difficult it was to do even basic things as a felon. It would be difficult for him to find employment, for example. Thatβs why heβd come to find he had to create his own spaces to make a living. He wouldnβt be able to rent an apartment β βpraise Black women who trusted me a little bit, or enough to put the apartments in their name and trust me to pay the bills,β he said.Β
βMe being a part of this pool of people now and really understanding from experience what itβs like to be impacted by the justice system, it was eye-opening,β said Moore. βEven if I did do the things that I was accused of, youβre making it extremely difficult for a person to be a part of society. They might as well had just sent me to prison.β
Moore said he has always been aware that people who look like him are treated differently in this country. His mom died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandparents, who often told him stories of their own upbringings in rural Louisiana and the neighborhoods of East Texas. His grandmotherβs admonitions about not stopping in Vidor, Texas for any reason, for example, sticks with him to this day.Β
The felony conviction did not stop him from going to college β Moore said he chose the University of Texas at Austin, because he saw it listed as the number one party school in the country β but it did get in the way of graduation.Β
βI wasnβt able to focus on school as much as I wanted to,β he said. βI was already the one black person in a lot of my classes. Then Iβm dealing with the fact that this probation is making it very difficult for me to wrap my head around school.β
He would eventually leave the university, but not before seeing his passion for activism ignited. There were several incidents of blackface and other racist incidents on campus. Moore and other Black students were denied entry into certain clubs around town, even in the mid-and late-2000s. There were police shootings almost every summer, he recalled, which Moore said βreally sparked somethingβ in him.Β Β
I always felt the need for us younger folks to pick up the pieces and do something
Moore had started a party promoting company, and was making good money at the time. Simultaneously, he was leading marches and organizing Black people on campus and around the city around some of the atrocities he was witnessing.Β
βI always felt the need for us younger folks to pick up the pieces and do something,β Moore said. Whether that was at UT, or in East Austin, which was battling rapid gentrification and displacement of Black families, Moore wanted to get more involved.Β
But he came to realize that he might have to choose between passions. βAt this particular point in time, you couldnβt be both. You couldnβt be an activist and a person; you had to choose one,β he said. And then Trayvon Martin was killed while walking home from a convenience store in 2012, and the choice was made for him.Β
βIβve been Trayvon Martin in my neighborhood. Iβve done it in my auntβs neighborhood, who stayed in a white neighborhood. That was just an eerie reflection of me,β he said. βWhen Trayvon Martin happened, I just, kind of like how people dedicate their lives to Jesus, I dedicated my life to the cause.β
The Austin Justice Coalition was born in 2015, and along with his team, Moore has been committed to improving the quality of life for Black people in the city since then.
βFor me, if the work we do, or the work weβve done, empowers people or enables people to empower themselves to speak up and become an agent of change, I think thatβs invaluable. If weβre just able to improve the quality of life for Black folks in the city, thatβs also invaluable. And then also β and I understand this very much more intimately than most people β change doesnβt come overnight, and I didnβt really understand that until I became a leader,β he said.Β
βThese systems and these institutions of racism are so very well constructed that it is going to take some time to undo it. And I think people think the easy thing to do is just go away and set up this little Black utopia, and Iβm totally down for that, however, the way this system is set up, itβs ingrained in us,β Moore said. βSo even if we go and try to set up Black utopia and Wakanda, chances are weβre bringing in systemic racism and white supremacy and colorism, so itβs not like weβre going to recreate the wheel, itβs just going to look different.βΒ
Unless the Black community in Austin and beyond comes together to do the work on themselves, as theyβre doing it externally.Β
βI would hope that people β if people donβt get anything else from me, I want them to understand that yes, we have to collectively come together to fight the powers that be, but we also have to come together and sit down and fight with the systems of internal oppression that weβve internalized,β he said.
You can join in the good fight with Moore and his team via their website. To see the full list of 2021 Innovative Leaders β click here.