Co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, James Farmer pioneered methods of nonviolent direct action, including the sit-ins at Jack Spratt Coffee House. A devotee of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent strategies, Farmer also organized the historic Freedom Rides, which lead to interstate travel desegregation. James Leonard Farmer Jr. was born on January 12, 1920, in Marshall, Texas. His mother was a teacher and his father a minister who was also the first African American citizen to earn a doctorate in the state. He spent his youth sheltered from the worst of the Jim Crow era by his father’s positions and community standing. Despite his privileged upbringing, he witnessed instances of discrimination during his child years that shaped the man he later became.
When he was almost four years old, he experienced the first sting of racism. He and his mother were shopping in town and and he wanted to stop at a soda fountain After putting him off with explanations that there was plenty of cold Coke at home, his mother finally explained that he could not go into the fountain for his soda because of his color. In March of 1930, when Farmer was ten, he went with his father to the train depot to buy a ticket for his uncle, aunt and cousin. They needed a Pullman car with a bedroom, but reserving one for an African American traveling from the South was difficult. Farmer’s father believed that, with his standing in the community, he could persuade the station manager to make the reservation. His father convinced the manager to give his uncle a room in the sleeping car, but the boy realized that his dad had lied about the facts. He was shocked. That was the only way his father could get the reservation. Young Farmer, seeing his father have to humble himself before the White man was disheartening. Farmer decided to dedicate his life to ending segregation.
Surrounded by literature and learning, the young Farmer was an excellent student, skipping grades and becoming a freshman at Wiley College, in town, in 1934 at the age of 14. His father also taught there. While there he continued to excel as part of the debate team, under the mentorship of Melvin Tolson, a professor of English, and his eloquence and storytelling abilities would later be heard nationally as an adult. He graduated from Wiley College at eighteen. Previously contemplating a career in medicine, Farmer then thought he would follow in his dad's footsteps and take up ministerial work. He completed his bachelor of divinity degree at Howard University School of Theology in 1941. There he studied under the legendary mystic Howard Thurman, who introduced him to the life and work of Gandhi Farmer studied much of Gandhi's philosophies and would apply the leader's ideas of nonviolent civil resistance to U.S. racial desegregation.
At the age of 21, Farmer was invited to the White House to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt signed the invitation. Before meeting the President, Mrs. Roosevelt spoke with the group. Farmer liked her right away, and they talked a lot. When they met President Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt stayed and listened. Farmer asked a tough question about Britain and France being called "champions of freedom." He pointed out their colonial rule in Africa. The president tactfully avoided the question. Mrs. Roosevelt spoke up, saying, "Just a minute, you did not answer the question!" Although the president still did not answer the question as Farmer phrased it, Farmer was placated, knowing that he had gotten the question out there.
Farmer was declared a conscientious objector during World War II. He was granted a deferment as a minister, although he had refused ordination after completion of his divinity studies at Howard University. Afterwards, he took a job with New York-based Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a pacifist organization run by A. J. Muste. The earliest civil rights leader to use direct, nonviolent means of protest, Farmer, his friend George Houser and a multi-racial group of colleagues founded the Committee of Racial Equality. The name was changed about a year later to the Congress of Racial Equality, (CORE) in 1942. Through this organization, he refined the practice of nonviolence in direct action when Martin Luther King, Jr., was still a teenager. CORE’s first act of civil disobedience was a 1942 sit-in at Jack Spratt Coffee House, a Chicago doughnut shop which refused to serve African Americans.
Twenty-eight persons entered Jack Spratt in groups, with at least one Black person in each group. No one who was served would eat until the Black people were served, or they gave their plate to the Black person nearest them. The other customers, already in the diner, did the same. The manager told them that they would serve the Black customers in the basement, but the group declined. Then it was proposed that all the Black people sit in the back corner and get served there, again the group declined. Finally, the establishment called the police. When the police entered, they did not kick the CORE group out. Having no other options, the restaurant finally served all patrons in the same area. Later CORE did tests at Jack Spratt and found that the diner was serving all customers.
CORE also challenged the White City Roller Skating Rink, which only allowed White people. White CORE members could enter, but Black members were turned away with excuses. CORE sued the rink. When the case went to trial, a state lawyer conducted the prosecution, rather than the county. The judge ruled in favor of the rink. Although the outcome of the case was a setback for CORE the group was becoming known for its efforts. With Farmer elected national chairman, CORE developed a mostly White North-based membership with various chapters, yet would eventually find itself becoming deeply involved in the South. Beginning in 1945, Farmer worked for the Upholsterers International Union, helping to organize mill workers in Virginia and North Carolina.
On April 19, 1946, Farmer married Dolores Winifred Inez Christie, but they divorced in November 1947 after she had a miscarriage and he an affair. In May 1949 he married actress Lula A. Peterson, a white woman who was a member of CORE. In 1950 Young became president of the Omaha, Nebraska chapter of the National Urban League where he served as executive secretary (1950–54). Under his leadership he tripled its membership and advocated for Black employment in previously White reserved jobs. Young was appointed dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work, where he worked from 1954 to 1961. As the dean of the School of Social Work, he was instrumental in improving relations between city and university. His advocacy of a “Domestic Marshall Plan”—massive funds to help solve America’s racial problems—was felt to have strongly influenced federal poverty programs sponsored by Democratic Party administrations.
The Civil Rights Movement was growing stronger during the 1960's. In 1961, Farmer became the national chairman of CORE again. The U.S. Supreme Court had already said that segregated bus travel between states was illegal. But Southern states had continued to enforce segregation on buses within their territories. Farmer began working on launching the Freedom Rides with the intention of challenging segregation on intestate bus travel, which had technically been declared illegal in 1946 in the case of Boynton v. Virginia (1960). The group planned to travel through the Deep South to test these laws. Farmer named the trip the "Freedom Ride." The Freedom Riders consisted of both women and men, Black and White, who traveled on bus routes through Southern states.
The plan was for a group of mixed races and genders to ride buses. They would train in Washington D.C. on nonviolent tactics. The ride began on May 4, 1961. Half the group rode on Greyhound buses, and the other half on Trailways buses. They planned to travel through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, ending in New Orleans on May 17. The first part of the trip through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia went smoothly. States knew about the ride, and many places removed "Colored" and "White Only" signs. But when the group reached Anniston, Alabama, the riders faced severe violence. They were beaten and attacked. One bus was even firebombed. The Riders again faced extreme violence when they reached Birmingham. The sheriff allowed members of the Ku Klux Klan to attack the Riders, before they eventually stepped in. The violent reactions and events attracted national media attention.
CORE suspended the ride after the Birmingham violence, but Diane Nash and others felt that if violence stops the rides, segregation wins. So they organized a new group of riders from Nashville to continue the route into Alabama. The Nashville riders successfully reached Montgomery on May 20, 1961. There, they were attacked by a large White mob at the bus station. The violence in Montgomery was severe and nationally televised. They continued to Jackson, MS. When riders arrived in Jackson, they were immediately arrested instead of attacked and sent to jail. They followed a "jail no bail" strategy. This meant they stayed in jail to fill them up with protesters and get more media attention. From local jails, they were sent to harsher conditions at Parchman State Penitentiary for forty days. Unbowed, he left the state penitentiary determined to continue the fight for racial equality and justice.
In September of 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission — at the behest of Attorney General Robert Kennedy — declared segregation impermissible in Southern public travel facilities and modes of transport. In 1963, police in Plaquemine, Louisiana, searched for Farmer because he was organizing protests. A funeral home director helped Farmer escape by having him pretend to be dead in the back of a hearse. He was driven out of town on back roads. He was arrested later that August for disturbing the peace. After being jailed for disturbing the peace, Farmer was unable to attend the March on Washington in August, 1963. His aide, Floyd McKissick, read the address he had written for that occasion. In the following years, Farmer expanded his involvement to guide the federal government in improving conditions for African Americans. Working with President Lyndon B. Johnson, he helped to write the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Farmer stepped down from the national directorship of CORE in 1966 in the midst of an organizational debate and accepted a teaching position at Lincoln University, a college near Oxford, PA. In 1968, Farmer ran as the Liberal Party candidate for a congressional seat representing New York’s newly created twelfth district in Brooklyn. Shirley Chisholm, the Democratic candidate in this heavily Democratic district, beat him by a margin of more than two to one, becoming the first African American woman elected to congress. President Richard M. Nixon invited Farmer to join his administration in one of three positions in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare: assistant secretary for administration, deputy commissioner of education in charge of civil rights, or personal consultant to the secretary. Farmer chose the position of assistant secretary for administration. He remained in this post until December 28, 1970.
Farmer retired from politics in 1971 but stayed active. He gave lectures and served on many boards. In 1975, he assisted Morris Milgram in establishing the Fund for an Open Society, an organization that provided low-interest mortgages for people of all colors. He led this organization until 1999. Jerry Wurf, the international president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees helped him to secure a position as the associate director of the Coalition of American Public Employees (CAPE), where Farmer remained for six years, from 1976 to 1982. He taught two years at Antioch University’s Philadelphia branch, 1983-84. In 1984, Farmer began teaching at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA, where he would stay until 1998. He wrote his autobiography, "Lay Bare the Heart", in 1985. More than a decade later he received the highest honor given to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1998. He shared the story and lessons of the Civil Rights movement to packed classes until 1998. Farmer died on July 9, 1999, in Fredericksburg. In 2001, a bust of Farmer was dedicated on the campus of Mary Washington College, which also named its multicultural center in his honor.