Isaac Edward Moore, Jr. was a brilliant and iconic attorney who practiced law in Denver for over fifty years. He also served two terms as a member of the Colorado State Legislature sponsoring some of the strongest civil rights bills in the nation. Known to everyone as “Ike” he was a warm, engaging and honorable person.
Isaac E. Moore Jr. was born on March 20, 1924 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His father, Dr. Isaac E. Moore Sr., (b.1890) was a surgeon and one of only 103 Black physicians among the 400,000 Black soldiers in World War I. After the war, Dr. Moore settled in Colorado Springs where he opened a hospital, the Lincoln Sanatorium, for the city’s 1,000 black residents. Dr. Moore died in 1931 at the young age of 40. His wife, Katherine Brown Moore, a schoolteacher, moved the family to Los Angeles when Isaac Jr. was seven years old.
Isaac Moore Jr. attended Thomas Jefferson high school in Los Angeles and then graduated from the University of Southern California. Inspired by Thurgood Marshall, he decided to become a lawyer. Wanting to return to Colorado, he applied and was accepted to the University of Colorado Law School. As a Black student, he was not allowed to live in the dormitories and suffered the indignity of having to sleep in a coal shed while a student there. Despite receiving — what he described as “very little help from a prejudiced faculty” — Isaac Edward Moore, Jr. graduated with distinction on June 12, 1949 — the second African American to graduate CU Law School (fifty years after the first Black graduate in 1898). After passing the Colorado Bar Examination, Moore was admitted to practice on September 13, 1949. For many years, Isaac E. Moore and James C. Flanigan (who later became Denver’s first African American Municipal Court Judge) were law partners, with offices located in the Hawkins building on 25th and Glenarm.
A strong proponent of social justice, Isaac Moore, sought to bring about change as one of the first Black members of the Colorado State Legislature. A powerful and eloquent speaker, Moore served in the House from 1957 – 1960 and 1964 – 1966. During his tenure, Moore, along with former Lieutenant Governor George Brown (at that time, a state senator), co-sponsored some of the strongest civil rights laws in the nation on fair housing, open records, fair employment, and prison work release. Moore was the sponsor of an historic bill giving individuals the right to counsel following an arrest – even before the U. S. Supreme Court’s Miranda decision. He was particularly proud of his sponsorship of a bill legislating the right of different races to marry in Colorado. Other bills he passed include the non- segregation of cemeteries; the creation of restraining orders outside of divorce actions; and blood tests in paternity suits.
Moore fought to give Hispanics a political voice in Colorado and was a founder of LARASA (Latin American Research and Service Agency). He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps; was a member of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association and the Colorado Supreme Court Ethics Committee. He was a founder of the Delta Eta Boule’, the Colorado Chapter of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the oldest Black professional fraternity in the United States; and also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.
Moore’s first wife was the late Dorothy Williams Moore and together they had two children, Emily Moore and Isaac E. Moore III — both of whom are deceased.
On August 20, 1998, Ike retired from private practice and moved to Memphis, Tennessee with his second wife, Alfreda Ingram Moore. He passed away at the age of 79 on October 16, 2003.
A Colorado pioneer, Isaac E. Moore Jr. will always be remembered as a passionate and compassionate fighter for the rights of all people.
The Blair-Caldwell Library has an Isaac E. Moore Jr. Collection of papers, photographs and political documents.
For more information, please contact Ike Moore’s stepdaughter, Schyleen Qualls: schyleenqualls@gmail.com or 415.830.2977.