5.+James+Farmer+and+the+Congress+of+Racial+Equality+(CORE)

the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)** //by Josh Hersch//
 * James Farmer and

**Name:** Willis Brown **Race:** African American    **Birthday:** June 13th, 1929         **Date of Incident:** Started in 1942 http://www.peacebuttons.info/IMAGES/0615.1943_CORE-button.jpg My name is Willis Brown. I was born on June 13th, 1929 in Blacksburg, South Carolina. I later moved up to Chicago, Illinois. There was a guy named James Farmer that was born nine years before me in 1920 in Marshall, Texas. He founded the Congress of Racial Equality (also known as “CORE”) in 1942 when I was 13 years old (“James Farmer”). It was also founded by a few other guys. Their names were Bernice Fisher, James R. Robinson, Joe Guinn, George Houser, and Homer Jack (“The History of CORE 1). He made this organization to confront urban segregation in the North near the Chicago area where I lived. He actually had his first sit-in at a segregated restaurant in Chicago only a few blocks away from where I lived (Danzer 593). These “sit-ins” were used by us African Americans to protest against discrimination. What we did was we sat down in the restaurant and didn’t leave until we got served by the restaurant. Also, my cousin told me that where he lived in Greensboro, North Carolina, they did the same kind of thing. They had a sit-in in a whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth’s store. At that sit-in, the media was there with all of their news cameras and stuff (Danzer 706). http://z.about.com/d/afroamhistory/1/0/O/4/jamesfarmer.jpg Later on in 1961, there was a guy named James Peck. He was a white civil activist who joined other members of the CORE on a bus ride across the South. This two bus trip was done to see if the Supreme Court would change their minds about segregated seating on interstate bus routes and segregated facilities in bus terminals. Peck and the other freedom riders (the people that rode the buses to challenge segregation) hoped to create violent reactions that would make the Kennedy administration enforce the law (Danzer 710). As a result, four of the freedom riders got arrested back in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Also, CORE got national attention because of these arrests (“The History of CORE” 2). As things moved on, many more CORE workers registered to vote in 1964 (Danzer 715). Sadly, in 1966, James Farmer stepped down from the National Director. In his place came Floyd McKissick who endorsed the term “Black Power.” Also, McKissick was more accepted in the Black community than Farmer was. Even though he was more accepted, CORE was very disorganized and in debt at the time when he became the leader. Because of this, he later retired in 1968 and was replaced by Roy Innis. The first thing that Innis did was that he got the organization out of debt and made a new fundraising branch (“The History of CORE 3). “Under Innis’s leadership, CORE embraced an ideology of pragmatic nationalism and lent its support to black economic development and community self-determination” (“The History of CORE 4). []  Switching the gears to present day, President Bill Clinton awarded the first leader, James Farmer, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, a year before he died. I will never forget what James Farmer (and the other leaders) did for the Black community. http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/07/55/40/image_6340557.jpg  -Willis Brown
 * Interests:** (Used to be) playing baseball with friends
 * General Info:** 2 brothers (one lives in North Carolina and one in Virginia), 1 sister (lives in New York)

** Works Cited ** Danzer, Gerald A, et al. The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Little, 2005. “The History of CORE." __CORE__. 2006. 20 Oct 2008 . "James Farmer." __Infoplease__. 2007. Pearson Education, Inc.. 20 Oct 2008 .

(c) Copyright 2008 | Josh Hersch