On June 2, 1965, Oneal Moore was killed when he and his partner, the first two Black sheriff’s deputies in Washington Parish, Louisiana, were ambushed by gunmen with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1964, when Dorman Crowe, the white sheriff of Washington Parish, Louisiana, sought re-election, he went to the Black community for support, promising to hire two Black deputies during his next term. After winning re-election, Sheriff Crowe kept his promise: Oneal Moore and his partner, Creed Rogers, became the first two Black deputy sheriffs in the parish.

The local Ku Klux Klan was reportedly enraged by Deputies Moore and Officer Rogers’s presence on the force and vowed to retaliate. Approximately a year after Deputies Moore and Rogers were appointed, they were responding to a call about a brush fire when they noticed a pickup truck with a Confederate flag bumper sticker following them.

The pickup truck’s occupants shot at the back of their car, and bullets smashed the deputies’ rear window. As the pickup truck passed them, the occupants fired several additional shots into the deputies’ car. The car crashed into a tree as Deputy Moore, who was driving, was killed instantly by a gunshot wound to the head. Deputy Rogers was severely wounded after being shot in his shoulder and permanently blinded in his right eye.

Deputy Rogers was able to use the radio and call in a description of the pickup truck. A vehicle fitting the description was stopped less than an hour later at a police roadblock. Law enforcement officers discovered several firearms and a noose during a search of the vehicle. The occupant of the vehicle, a known Klan member, was charged with murder and briefly held, but charges were later dropped, citing insufficient evidence. Bail for the suspect was paid by funds raised by local Klan members.

Even though the FBI conducted multiple investigations into the case, no one was ever held accountable for the death of Oneal Moore.