In 1960, when Alice Moss, 40, a native of Dover, Ohio, residing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, married Kenneth H. Moss Jr., 27, a Bahamas negro, they didn’t expect the road to be an easy one.
What the newly married couple of less than two weeks didn’t expect, was to be run out of Alice’s home by an angry mob, and the new bride Alice, to end up in jail charged with assault and battery.
(Florence Morning News Saturday 26th November 1960)
In 1960, many States in the United States of America, interracial marriages were still mandated under anti-miscegenation laws. In fact, it would not be until 1967 that the US Supreme Court mandated that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.
Even after the laws changed, it didn’t mean that negroes could live where they wanted with their white partners. Many white neighbourhoods were off limits to negroes, married or otherwise. Alice, 40, and Kenneth, 27, who were married in Nassau, soon found this out.
When Alice tried to bring her negro husband of just two weeks home to an all white neighbourhood in Fort Lauderdale, for the American holiday Thanksgiving, an angry mob of some 75 neighbours gathered outside her house.
There was no way they were going to allow a negro to live in their neighbourhood.
(Florence Morning News Saturday 26th November 1960)
Married on November 10, 1960. Run out of town by November 26, 1960
Alice (Candy) Nadeau had only just married Kenneth Moss Jr., on November 10, 1960 in Nassau. Just 16 days after they were married Kenneth was on a plane back home to Nassau.
Alice had tried to take her new husband home with her to Fort Lauderdale. The neighbourhood Alice lived was a segregated on, a whites only neighbourhood. When neighbours found out that a negro was seen in the area, up to 75 people gathered outside Alice’s house. The crowd demanded that Kenneth leave immediately.
Alice came out of her front door to shout at the crowd to tell them to leave. She apparently picked up some pebbles and threw them at the crowd. One gentleman claimed that a pebble hit him. He filed assault and battery charges against Alice Moss. Alice was arrested on 25th November 1960, and released on $200 bail.
Kenneth Moss Jr., was forced to leave Florida and went back to Nassau.
His wife Alice couldn’t travel with him to the Bahamas because she was due to be in court for trial on November 30th., 1960 to answer assault and battery charges stemming from throwing pebbles at an angry mob of racist neighbours.
(Pensacola News Journal Saturday 26th November 1960)
Even after Alice and Kenneth were forced out of the neighbourhood, the crowd stayed to ensure they didn’t return
