Despite their slight degree of economic independence, Ruth and Amzie Moore never enjoyed much financial stability, and by the mid-1950s they had been pushed to the verge of financial ruin. White-owned banks and businesses, in a carefully concerted effort, threatened them with foreclosure and bankruptcy. After Amzie Moore insisted that these problems were the result of his NAACP activities, the national office had offered some help, but the couple's financial situation remained precarious. It was, in part, the desperate plight of organizers like the Moores that had led Baker and her New York
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