Making the most of his time

STATE COLLEGE Pa. — Irvin Moore is a sight to behold.

Today, his fit includes a fashionista ball cap, plaid, matching his scarf. His quilted shirt is checked as well, orange and blue, over a red t-shirt with a picture of a teddy bear wearing what can only be described as a Moore-like outfit.

At the man’s feet sits his service dog, Kora, with a pink and white bandana around her neck. She used to be afraid of people. Now she never leaves Moore’s side.

It’s as if the whole ensemble screams: “I’m alive!”

“I’m not going to dress ordinary,” Moore said, conceding that his current outfit of jeans and the graphic-tee are more on the ordinary side of his wardrobe. “But I dress in such a way that people look and say, ‘Oh look at that!’ My hats and all the coats and my sweaters and my scarfs — well, I like looking good!”

And why not? Why not celebrate being alive and cool when you’ve spent more than half your life incarcerated, when you’ve come back from one of the toughest spots there is.

He works part time in the Restorative Justice Initiative (RJI) through Penn State’s College of Education. The office is lined with his artwork: vibrant canvases depicting powerful messages if you look closely. Again, there’s no mistaking the energy.

Moore learned to paint during his time at Graterford state prison starting in 1969. He was serving a life sentence after he was convicted of murder. For 26 years, he was at Graterford. He spent 26 more at Rockview state prison in Centre County.

However, after 52 years Moore was released when the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons voted 5-0 in his favor — Governor Tom Wolf signed the pardon on March 25, 2021. Moore is currently pursuing a Penn State bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitation and Human Services and by December, he will graduate. He’ll be 80 years old.

Imagine That

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but Moore didn’t find out until 1971.

How is that even possible?

Well, the answer lies simply in a complex story: He was sentenced to life two days before footprints appeared on the moon’s surface. He had no access to radio or newspapers. Letters were even censored. The prison didn’t have a library. The only book available to inmates was the Bible.

“It was like being in another world, on another planet,” Moore said nearly five years after he was released. “We didn’t know what was happening.”

The story of how Moore wound up in prison goes like this: As a young man in Philadelphia, by his own admission, he got caught up in drugs and shot and killed a man in a dispute over them.

“I was involved with drugs, as I should not have been but I got caught up in the trap,” Moore said.

Only one light bulb hung in his cell, 10 feet above Moore’s head. He couldn’t reach it, but it didn’t matter — the lights turned off at the same time every night.

“You got up when they said to get up, you went to sleep when they said,” Moore said.

How does a man not only survive but become an adult while behind bars for a half-century? Education is the short answer. It wasn’t guaranteed, but learning made Moore believe he wouldn’t die in prison.

Now, through Penn State’s RJI program working in educational support and as a community liaison, Moore is continuing the advocacy he started on the inside.

Always Learning

Moore dropped out of school when he was in ninth grade, but that never meant he stopped learning. It was the one thing he said his grade school teachers did right.

“I didn’t reach a level of intelligence to stop, to stay static,” Moore said. “They taught me how to pick up books, how to question, how to read comprehensively and how to critically think.”

The prison education system was nonexistent when Moore first arrived at Graterford, and for the first few years he fought to survive “through that horrendous system that was dark, dank, dirty, dangerous and deficient, devoid of anything human.”

It was hard to be hopeful: Parole isn’t a possibility for anyone sentenced to life in Pennsylvania, something Moore didn’t realize when he stood in front of a judge, having confessed to his crime.

“Life sentences in Pennsylvania are all natural life,” Moore said he was told when he first arrived at Graterford. “The judge doesn’t have to sentence you to life without parole because that would be redundant.”

It was all difficult to accept.

“Not only was I in the penitentiary, I was a forgotten man,” Moore said. “I was in the penitentiary with the worst sentence other than death that you can have. I had death by incarceration.

“I didn’t even start living yet. I was only 22.”

Older inmates directed him back toward education, away from fights and stabbings, as they worked toward change.

“I had to grow up in there and one of the first things we decided to do was to change the system because with it being no radio, no TV, no information exchange, it was violent,” Moore said. “The guards would beat us to death, (the inmate) thrown in a hole. Some of us had to sacrifice our lives for (change), some of us sacrificed our bodies or our minds.”

By 1971, he received his GED.

“I always knew I was intelligent,” Moore said. “I was just dumb in so many ways, stupid in other ways, but I was always intelligent.”

Several universities came together to form a post-secondary education consortium — the first in the state of Pennsylvania, Moore said. It was a degree-oriented program fronted by Villanova, Cheyney University, Montgomery County Community College and Northampton Community College.

When Moore was released he already had two associates degrees in education and had spent decades teaching other inmates. He never stopped learning, or helping others to do the same.

“I taught everything,” Moore said. "I took whatever it was that I could read and learn myself and I could then teach the men around me.”

People thought he was wasting time, saving up the 42 cents an hour he earned teaching: Moore was told the hope wouldn’t last, that he would eventually come to his senses and “level out.” But that never happened.

“I felt different,” Moore said, regarding when he told people he wouldn’t die incarcerated. “I had no idea it would take 52 years. But so what? I’m home. I’m out.”

Prison is Prison

In March 2026, the Rockview prison is scheduled to close. If Moore was still incarcerated, he would’ve been transferred.

In September, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections announced that Rockview and Quehanna Boot Camp would shut down in a decision expected to save the commonwealth up to $100 million in future fiscal years. Those against the closures argued that Rockview was a place where rehabilitation and not just punishment was the focus. But Moore’s opinion gets to the heart of his take on the criminal justice system more generally.

“People asked me how I’m feeling about Rockview closing, you know, I said ‘Good.’” Moore said, unsurprised by the question. “Rockview wasn’t Graterford, but it was still a prison. And I don’t care, the most elaborate prison in the world is still prison. And a person will sit there surrounded by amenities and still want to be free, still long to be free.”

He first arrived in Centre County in 1995, one year after the largest crime bill in the history of the United States was passed. Under the Clinton administration, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 revoked the ability for incarcerated individuals to receive Pell Grants for higher education.

“When I say it stopped, it stopped,” Moore said. “With the funding being pulled, all the universities and colleges pulled out (of the post-secondary educational consortium), except for one institution, that was Villanova.”

As a private college, Villanova had enough money and resources to remain committed to the program. Moore said it was the only university “that remained behind the walls” awarding degrees.

Moore hasn’t stopped fighting for more access to education for inmates and the RJI provides him the outlet to share his story. And he isn’t done learning, or living either.

State College is “an insulated kind of community, unlike any that I’ve ever been in and I’m trying to take advantage of it,” Moore said. “Making connections, introducing people to who I am, to my ideas, my perceptions and seeing who I can help. Who I can help materially, psychologically, emotionally, some people that need to hear my story so that they can lift themselves up.”

Friends for Life

Moore’s mind is an encyclopedia of human culture. As he tells his story he weaves in history, literary works and fables, reciting their messages and translating them into his life.

When he speaks, he pulls in the listener, drawing attention in a way that compelled Sarah Kollat, a psychology professor at Penn State, to introduce herself and simply say hello.

“When I was coming out of the Chambers Building, Irvin was sitting on a bench with Kora, sitting in the sunshine, drinking a cup of coffee and he was just so welcoming,” said Kollat, who earned her doctorate in developmental psychology in 2007 — 14 years before Moore was released.

That one conversation sparked a deep, natural friendship that’s grown over the years. Moore hasn’t taken one of Kollat’s classes, but when their schedules align, they add to their album of fashion photo selfies, documenting their lasting bond and style.

“It’s our friendship in a nutshell,” Kollat said.

“I think he firmly believes that human society is a wonderful asset. He believes in the goodness in people and so I think that’s what draws people in, is the fact that he just really wants to be connected to people.”

Moore has become a friend of the entire Kollat family. When he graduates, they’ll be among the crowd supporting him.

“We’re probably going to be balling our eyes out, tears of joy,” Kollat said. “He’s just a phenomenal person to know. It’s a real gift having him in our life.”

Freedom Through Hope

If you ask Moore how his day is, the answer never dips below anything less than good. It’s an attitude he’s kept since Graterford, one he carried to Rockview and now exudes toward every person he comes across. New friends get greeted with a hug and a chance to pet Kora.

“I feel like Irvin has that very kind of perspective that every person he encounters has an opportunity for him to learn something from them,” Kollat said.

In the penitentiary, Moore read the story of “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.” When Aladdin freed Genie, it was ready to unleash destruction on him — Moore saw that and vowed to never hold the same hostility toward the world.

“I said ‘Wow, he had been in prison all that time, had grown so angry and bitter and acidic, he was ready to destroy any and everything,’” Moore said. “I said, ‘When I’m freed, ‘cause I knew I would be, I’m not gonna do that. When I’m free, I’m gonna make sure that any and everybody that I come into contact with is blessed in whatever way I can bless them.’”

Hope gives people something to live for, something positive to patiently wait for. For 52 years, Moore carried hope, but that’s not always common.

On the inside, he never heard anyone say “Have a good day.” Outside, those words are used so often that they can lose their meaning.

Not to Moore.

His smile, even if it's an uncontrollable reaction, widens every time he hears them.

Moore prepared for his future by learning and now, for the past five years, he’s living the life he planned.

“Look, I’m 80 years old, but I come from a family of long-lived individuals,” Moore said. “So, the way I feel, I expect to be in my 100s. I still want to paint and I want to draw, I want to sculpt. I want to do those things.”

One day, he wants to buy a house. Right now, he lives in an apartment which is roughly five times the size of the cell. But Moore wants space: a library for his books, a living room to entertain, a room for guests who visit, a studio to create art and music.

He doesn’t know when he would buy one, but that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.

“They say dreamers, nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream,” Moore said. “Well, in dreams, we get an opportunity to envision what’s possible and quite often, you wake up and you forget your dream. But sometimes, you wake up and say ‘Oh! That dream was magnificent, that dream inspires me, that dream propels me!’ I’m going to hold onto that. You know they say wish upon a star. So, I’m trying to make all my wishes and the wishes of other people come true.”