Editing Archie Moore (section)

==Early life==
Moore was born Archibald Lee Wright, the son of Thomas Wright, a farm laborer and drifter, and Lorena Wright. Though he always insisted that he was born in 1916 in [[Collinsville, Illinois]], his mother told reporters that he was actually born in 1913 in [[Benoit, Mississippi]].<ref name"B">{{Cite web|url=https://nytimes.com/1998/12/10/nyregion/archie-moore-84-master-of-the-ring-dies.html|title=Archie Morre, 84, Master of the Ring, Dies|last=Eskenazi|first=Gerald|date=1998-12-10|website=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=2022-09-06}}</ref> His father abandoned the family when Archie was an infant. Unable to provide for him and his older sister, his mother gave them into the care of an uncle and aunt, Cleveland and Willie Pearl Moore, who lived in St. Louis. Archie later explained why he was given their surname: "It was less questions to be called Moore."

He attended segregated all-Black schools in St. Louis, including Lincoln High School, although he never graduated. His uncle and aunt provided him with a stable upbringing, but after his uncle died in a freak accident around 1928, Moore began running with a street gang. One of his first thefts was a pair of oil lamps from his home, which he sold so that he would have money to buy boxing gloves. He later recalled of his stealing: "It was inevitable that I would be caught. I think I knew this even before I started, but somehow the urge to have a few cents in my pocket made me overlook this eventuality". After he was arrested for attempting to steal change from a motorman's box on a streetcar, he was sentenced to a three-year term at a reform school in [[Booneville, Missouri]]. He was released early from the school for good behavior after serving twenty-two months.

Around 1933 Moore joined the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]], working for the forestry division at a camp in [[Poplar Bluff, Missouri]]. Determined to become a boxer, he decided to make his work at the camp a form of training. He later recalled that the other boys constantly kidded him about one daily exercise—standing upright in the bed of a truck as it drove along primitive forest roads, waiting until the last possible moment before ducking or weaving away from tree branches.