Oral history interview with John Thomas Moore, October 18, 2000
Subtitle: interview R-0142, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Weber, Chris, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American clergy; African American Pentecostals; African Americans; Religious life
Other titles: Interview R-0142, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with John Thomas Moore, October 18, 2000; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Bishop John Thomas Moore, Jr. says that Jesus began speaking to him when he was still in high school. His peers did not understand him, but his faith gave him the strength to endure their puzzlement, and he entered the ministry in 1957, just after he graduated. He had an active career, much of it in Durham, N.C., where he eventually founded the New Gospel Horizon Resurrection Holy Church, Inc. Moore's father died in a hospital when Moore was young, the victim of a brutal beating and an unsuccessful amputation. His father's death may have inspired Moore to use his faith to heal his congregants, laying hands upon them, and to bring his religious devotion to elder care facilities, a practice he stopped shortly before this interview because of his own health problems. Moore is fiercely devoted to God and believes that God and the devil are at work in his daily life. This conviction drives this interview, as Moore recalls his career in the ministry and his struggle with diabetes, an ordeal that, according to Moore, pitted God and the devil against one another on the battlefield of Moore's body. This belief gives Moore a split worldview, one that sees the glorious potential of God's love, but also the insidious influence of the devil and a steady decline toward the apocalypse described in the book of Revelation. His struggles--including a troubled marriage and his efforts to uplift the black community--and his successes all inspire him to further devotion. This interview provides a detailed portrait of the role of religion in one man's life and his efforts to use his devotion to shape the world around him.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 20, 2008).

Interview participants: John Thomas Moore, interviewee; Christopher Weber, interviewer.

Duration: 01:29:33.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 128 kilobytes, 163 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series R, Special research projects, interview R-0142, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 30 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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