In Conversation with Bryce Moore
Check out Bryce’s conversation with Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ Portia Reddick White about what Pride month means to him and why it’s so important for others in the LGBTQ+ community to speaking up against Big Tobacco.
Bryce Moore’s passion for tobacco control began at a young age after seeing his beloved grandfather struggle with a pack-a-day menthol cigarette addiction. As a kid, he would throw away his grandfather’s cigarettes and lighters in hopes of helping him quit smoking.
Bryce joined Generation Free, Mississippi’s youth anti-tobacco organization sponsored by The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, founding a chapter at his high school and serving on the organization’s youth advisory board for four years and on the college board for two years.
When it comes to the queer community, I constantly see the tobacco industry sponsoring Pride events, and they really make it seem as if they care about us, that they’re on our side, that they’re in our life. But the truth is that they are not, they can’t be for us because we are about the safety and well-being of our community and we are not about using products that … harm us and kill us.
He has advocated for policy change at the local, state and national levels. In his home state, he worked with the Mississippi Tobacco-Free Coalition of Harrison County to help pass local smoke-free policies to help protect his community from secondhand smoke.
In 2016, Bryce was a fellow for Truth Initiative's Youth Activism Fellowship and was also awarded the 2016 National Youth Advocate of the Year by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
He's continued his work with Truth Initiative as a youth activist trainer and with Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids as a young adult ambassador, helping to train and inspire new youth tobacco control advocates while also continuing to advocate for federal policies to eliminate flavored tobacco products.
Bryce is a 2020 graduate of The University of Southern Mississippi. He has a passion for poetry and writing and has served as editor-in-chief of the poetry community, Poetry Battles, since 2018.