Peter Weddick Moore
Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Peter Weddick Moore 1859 1934. Educator. Was born into slavery. President, what is now Elizabeth City State University, 1891- 1923. Grave 1/3 mi. SE.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Born into slavery in 1859, Peter Weddick Moore became an educator and, from 1891 to 1923, the founding head of the state normal school that grew into Elizabeth City State University. Over three decades he built an institution devoted to training Black teachers for eastern North Carolina. His grave lies about a third of a mile southeast.
Why it matters
Moore's life traces the arc from enslavement to institution-building, and the university he led still educates students today.
Plan your visit
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Food & drink
- Masala Bay Grill14.0 mi away · 1972 Caratoke Highway, Moyock, NC
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Related people
- · Peter Weddick Moore
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hugh Cale
Elizabeth City, NC
Hugh Cale served in the North Carolina legislature during the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction years, winning seats between 1876 and 1891. In 1891 he sponsored the bill that created the state-supported school for Black teachers that grew into today's Elizabeth City State University. His grave lies about six-tenths of a mile west of this marker.
Joseph C. Price
Elizabeth City, NC
Born in Elizabeth City in 1854, Joseph C. Price rose to become one of the most celebrated Black orators and educators of his generation. He was a founder and the first president of Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, championing higher education for African Americans in the decades after emancipation. His eloquence carried him across the country and abroad before his death in 1893 at just thirty-nine.
Elizabeth City State University
Elizabeth City, NC
Elizabeth City State University began in 1891 as a state-supported normal school to train Black teachers, part of the wave of institutions founded across the South after Reconstruction to educate a rising generation of African Americans. It grew into a four-year college by 1939 and attained university status in 1969, tracing the long arc from segregated teacher-training school to full public university.
Rosenwald Schools
Edenton, NC
In 1912, businessman Julius Rosenwald and educator Booker T. Washington created a fund that provided matching grants to help African American communities build better schools across the segregated South. In North Carolina alone the fund aided 817 projects in 93 counties, beginning with the two-teacher Warren Grove School, completed in October 1915 about five miles northeast. Local Black families raised much of the money and labor themselves.