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To be black and to be in Durham, N.H., in 1969 was a matter of some complexity. The College Opportunity Program Experiment (COPE), instituted to recruit disadvantaged students at UNH, had begun with the admission of 10 students in 1967. Against the backdrop of race riots in Detroit and Newark, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, student groups were demanding change at UNH. In the spring of 1969 a joint faculty-student board on black student affairs proposed that the university recruit African-American students and faculty members and initiate a black studies program. Despite concerns about lack of funding, the proposal was accepted by the university senate, and eight Martin Luther King scholarships were added to COPE. Moore had received one of those scholarships.

Laymon and Moore were part of a group of 30 African-American students who enrolled at UNH that fall. Culture shock ensued. "There were people in New Hampshire who had never seen a black person in the flesh," says Laymon. "Little kids in the grocery store would look at you like you'd escaped from the zoo." At a time when student activism may have reached its peak, a few of the black students from Chicago were trying to "outbad" each other, says Moore. Because it was a crime to openly carry a arge knife back home, the students took advantage of the lack of a similar law in New Hampshire, and swaggered around Durham with large Bowie knives strapped to their belts.

Ultimately, "COPE-King" was disbanded, partly for lack of support and funding. Still, the experiment was a success for many of the 70 students who participated. Moore's potential was evident from the beginning, recalls Myrna Adams, who became the university's first black administrator when she was hired as assistant to the academic vice president in 1969.

"Jimmie was the life of the party," she says. "But once he sized up a situation and said, 'This is what I've got to do,' then he'd do it." Moore believes that the change to a rural setting helped by giving him a new perspective on his old life in the city.

Even in this new environment, Moore had a way of making things happen. Although freshmen were forbidden to do so, he somehow managed to keep his little yellow sports car on campus without getting caught. When Dick Gregory performed at the Field House, Moore and Laymon learned that the comedian and civil rights activist would attend a reception at a private home afterwards. "We hitchhiked there," recalls Laymon, "and then at the party we just walked around like we belonged there." Before the evening was through, the two had a conversation with Gregory, who advised them to get the best education they could.

Moore wound up on academic probation his freshman year, but soon he was following Gregory's advice. After he made a comment in class, political science professor Bob Craig encouraged him to speak up more often. "I began to understand that a liberal arts education is all about the critical thinking that has to go on," says Moore, "and not necessarily regurgitation of what you think the professor wants. This was a great experience for me because law school is not about being right or wrong, it's about arguing both sides of a case, and on any given day you can win or you can lose depending on who you appear before, or what law you can cite."

One night late in freshman year, Moore announced to his incredulous friends that he would be completing his bachelor's degree in three years. The next year, he became a resident assistant, lived in a single room, joined student government and started taking five or six courses at a time. Toward the end of his third year, he went to the registrar's office, convinced that he had the requisite credits to graduate—plus two. There was a tense moment as the skeptical woman at the counter went out back to check the files, but she returned to announce that he had achieved his goal.

Moore went on to earn a master's in urban education at the University of Massachusetts and a law degree at Rutgers. He worked at the Brooklyn Legal Aid Society before serving briefly as the first black assistant attorney general for the state of Delaware. In 1976, he and his wife (they have since divorced) and their two children moved to Philadelphia, where Moore started his own law firm specializing in real estate, personal injury and collections. "I practiced law for 25 years," he says. "I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be a judge."

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