A longtime Louisville social activist has died. Tom Moffett died Sunday at the age of 94.
For decades, wearing his trademark red sweater, Moffett was a fixture at government meetings and hearings, demonstrations and marches. He was an anti-war activist and was active in the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. Moffett was also vocal in calling for changes in education, health care and affordable housing.
In a 2006 interview for the Southern Oral History Program, Moffett said the work of social justice is often long and slow, but it eventually yields results.
“You never know when the opportunity is going to come for some kind of major breakthrough and it doesn’t happen every day," he said. "Martin Luther King didn’t know that the Montgomery bus boycott was going to be a turning point in the history of this country."
Born in Korea to missionary parents, Moffett came to Louisville in 1966 to serve as pastor of a Presbyterian Church in west Louisville, where he remained after his ministry. He was an ally of fellow Louisville activists Anne and Carl Braden, who drew worldwide attention when they arranged to buy a house for an African-American family in an all-white neighborhood.
Funeral arrangements for Moffett are pending.
