James L Farmer Jr. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 1st National Director of theCongress of Racial Equality | |
| In office 1942–1966 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Floyd McKissick |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Leonard Farmer Jr. (1920-01-12)January 12, 1920 Marshall, Texas, US |
| Died | July 9, 1999(1999-07-09) (aged 79) |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | James L. Farmer Sr. (father) |
| Education | Wiley University (BS) Howard University (BDiv) |
James Leonard Farmer Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and leader in theCivil Rights Movement "who pushed for nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongsideMartin Luther King Jr."[1] In 1942 he was a co-founder of what became known as CORE, or theCongress of Racial Equality. He was the initiator and organizer of the firstFreedom Ride in 1961, which eventually led to the desegregation of interstate transportation in theUnited States.[1][2]
As a young man, Farmer had co-founded the Committee of Racial Equality inChicago along withGeorge Houser, James R. Robinson, Samuel E. Riley,Bernice Fisher,Homer Jack, and Joe Guinn. It was later dedicated to endingracial segregation in the United States throughnonviolence. Farmer served as the national chairman from 1942 to 1944.
By the 1960s, Farmer was known as "one of the Big Four civil rights leaders in the 1960s, together with King,NAACP chiefRoy Wilkins andUrban League headWhitney Young."[2][3][4]
James L. Farmer Jr. was born and raised inMarshall, Texas, at a time when racial discrimination was law throughout the Southern States. His father James K. Farmer Sr was a Methodist minister and also taught atWiley College in town.
When Farmer was ten, his Uncle Fred, Aunt Helen, and cousin Muriel came down to visit from New York. They had no trouble getting a sleeping compartment on the train down but were worried about getting one on the way back. Trains in Texas were segregated and often blacks had to accept lesser accommodations.
Farmer went to the train station with his dad who arranged the return trip. 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. On the way back home, his father said, "I had to tell that lie about your Uncle Fred. That was the only way we could get the reservation. The Lord will forgive me."[5] Farmer decided to dedicate his life to ending segregation.[6]
Farmer was a child prodigy; in 1934, at the age of 14, he enrolled as a freshman at Wiley College. Thehistorically black college was affiliated with the Methodist Church.[2] Farmer was selected as a member of the debate team.Melvin B. Tolson, a professor of English, became his mentor.[7]
At the age of 21, Farmer was invited to theWhite House to talk with PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt.Eleanor Roosevelt signed the invitation. Before the talk with the president, Mrs. Roosevelt talked to the group. Farmer took a liking to her immediately, and the two of them monopolized the conversation. When the group went in to talk to President Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt followed and sat in the back. After the formalities were done, the young people were allowed to ask questions. Farmer said, "On your opening remarks you described Britain and France as champions of freedom. In light of their colonial policies in Africa, which give the lie to the principle, how can they be considered defenders?"[8] The president tactfully avoided the question. Mrs Roosevelt spoke up, saying, "Just a minute, you did not answer the question!"[9] 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.[10]
Farmer earned aBachelor of Science degree atWiley College in 1938, and aBachelor of Divinity degree fromHoward University School of Religion in 1941. At Wiley, Farmer became anguished over segregation, recalling particular occasions of racism he had witnessed or suffered in his younger days. During the Second World War, Farmer gained official status as aconscientious objector.[2]
Inspired byHoward Thurman, a professor of theology at Howard University, Farmer became interested inGandhi-stylepacifism.[11]Martin Luther King Jr. also studied Gandhi and adopted many of his principles.
Farmer started to think about how to stop racist practices in the United States while working at theFellowship of Reconciliation, which he joined after college.[2][12]
During the 1950s, Farmer served as national secretary of theStudent League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of the socialistLeague for Industrial Democracy. After 1960, SLID became known asStudents for a Democratic Society.
Farmer married Winnie Christie in 1945.[13] Winnie became pregnant soon after they were married. When she found a procative note from a girl in one of Farmer's coat pockets, she was outraged at him. She suffered a miscarriage, and the couple divorced not long afterward.
A few years later, Farmer married Lula A. Peterson. She had been diagnosed withHodgkin's disease. The two were advised against having children, as pregnancy was thought to exacerbate cancer. Years later, they sought a second opinion. At that time, Lula was encouraged to try to have children. She first had a miscarriage but then had a daughter, Tami Lynn Farmer, born on February 14, 1959.[14] A second daughter, Abbey Farmer, was born in 1962.
James Farmer later recalled:
I talked toA. J. Muste, executive director of theFellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), about an idea to combat racial inequality. Muste found the idea promising but wanted to see it in writing. I spent months writing the memorandum making sure it was perfect. A. J. Muste wrote me back asking me about money to fund it and how they would get members. Finally, I was asked to propose my idea in front of the FOR National Council. In the end, FOR chose not to sponsor the group, but they gave me permission to start the group in Chicago. When Farmer got back to Chicago, the group began setting up the organization. The name they picked was CORE, the Committee of Racial Equality. The name was changed about a year later to theCongress of Racial Equality.[15]
In an interview withRobert Penn Warren in 1964 for the bookWho Speaks for the Negro?, Farmer described the founding principles of CORE as follows:
Jack Spratt was a local diner in Chicago that would not serve colored people. CORE decided to do a large-scale sit in where they would occupy all available seats. 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 colored customers in the basement, but the group declined. Then it was proposed that all the colored 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 refused to kick the CORE group out. Having no other options, the restaurant finally served all patrons in the same area. Afterward, CORE did tests at Jack Spratt and found that the diner's policy had continued to serve all customers.[17][18]
The White City Roller Skating Rink allowed only white patrons. Its staff made excuses to blacks as to why they could not enter. For example, white CORE members were allowed to enter the rink, but black members were refused because of "a private party". Having documented that the rink was lying about the circumstances, CORE decided to sue them. 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 making a name for itself.[19]
In 1961, Farmer, who was working for theNAACP, was reelected as the national director of CORE, as the civil rights movement was gaining power. Although the United States Supreme Court inMorgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946) had ruled that segregated interstate bus travel was unconstitutional, and reiterated that inBoynton v. Virginia (1960), Southern states had continued to enforce segregation on buses within their territories.
Gordon Carey proposed the idea of a secondJourney of Reconciliation and Farmer jumped at the idea. This time, the group planned to journey through theDeep South.[20] Farmer coined a new name for the trip: theFreedom Ride.
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 “Interview with James Farmer” conducted in 1985 for theEyes on the Prize documentary in which he discusses his work in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and debates within the movement over the commitment to non-violence. |
They planned for a mixed-race and -gender group to test segregation on interstate buses. The group would be trained extensively on nonviolent tactics in Washington, D.C., and embark on May 4, 1961: half by each of the two major carriers,Greyhound Bus Company andTrailways. They would ride through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and finish in New Orleans on May 17. They also planned to challenge segregated seating in bus stations and lunch rooms. For overnight stops they planned rallies and support from the black community, and scheduled talks at local churches or colleges.
On May 4, the participants began. The trip down through Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia went smoothly enough. The states knew about the trip and facilities either took down the "Colored" and "White Only" signs, or didn't enforce the segregation laws. Before the group made it to Alabama, the most dangerous part of the Freedom Ride, Farmer had to return home because his father died.
In Alabama, the other riders were severely beaten and abused at a stop, and they narrowly escaped death when their bus was firebombed. With the bus destroyed, they flew to New Orleans instead of finishing the ride.
Diane Nash and other members of theNashville Student Movement andSNCC quickly recruited college students to restart the Freedom Ride where the first had left off. Farmer rejoined the group inMontgomery, Alabama.Doris Castle persuaded him to get on the bus at the last minute. The Riders were met with severe violence; in Birmingham the sheriff allowed local KKK members several minutes to attack the Riders. They badly injured a photographer covering events. The violent reactions and events attracted national media attention.
The group's efforts sparked a summer of similar rides by otherCivil Rights leaders and thousands of ordinary citizens. InJackson, Mississippi, the state capital, Farmer and the other riders were immediately arrested and jailed, but law enforcement prevented violence. The riders followed a "jail no bail" philosophy to try to fill the jails with protesters and attract media attention. From county and town jails, the riders were sent to harsher conditions atParchman State Penitentiary.[21]
As the Freedom Rides were attacked by whites, news coverage became widespread, and included photographs, newspaper accounts, and motion pictures. The Congress of Racial Equality and segregation and civil rights became national issues. Farmer became well known as a civil-rights leader. The Freedom Rides inspiredErin Gruwell's teaching techniques and theFreedom Writers Foundation.
The following year, 1963, civil rights groups, supplemented by hundreds of college students from the North, worked with local activists in Mississippi on voter education and registration.James Chaney,Andrew Goodman andMichael Schwerner, all of whom Farmer had helped recruit for CORE, disappeared during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. A full-scale FBI investigation aided by other law enforcement, found their murdered corpses buried in an earthen dam.
These events later were the basis for the 1988 feature movie,Mississippi Burning. Years later, recalling Freedom Summer, Farmer said, "Anyone who said he wasn't afraid during the civil rights movement was either a liar or without imagination. I think we were all scared. I was scared all the time. My hand didn't shake but inside I was shaking."[2]
In 1963, Louisiana state troopers hunted for Farmer door to door for trying to organize protests. A funeral home director had Farmer play dead in the back of a hearse that carried him along back roads and out of town. He was arrested that August for disturbing the peace.[22]
As the Director of CORE, Farmer was considered one of the "Big Six" of theCivil Rights Movement who helped organize theMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. (The press also used the term "Big Four", ignoringJohn Lewis andDorothy Height.)[23][24][25]Growing disenchanted with emerging militancy and black nationalist sentiments in CORE, Farmer resigned as director in 1966. By that time, Congress had passed theCivil Rights Act of 1964, ending legal segregation, and theVoting Rights Act of 1965, authorizing federal enforcement of registration and elections.[12]
Farmer took a teaching position atLincoln University, ahistorically black college (HBCU) near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also lectured around the country. In 1968, Farmer ran forU.S. Congress as aLiberal Party candidate backed by the Republican Party, but lost toShirley Chisholm.
In 1969, the newly elected Republican PresidentRichard Nixon offered Farmer the position of Assistant Secretary of theDepartment of Health, Education, and Welfare (now Health and Human Services). The next year, frustrated by the Washington bureaucracy, Farmer resigned from the position.[26]
Farmer retired from politics in 1971 but remained active, lecturing and serving on various boards and committees. He was one of the signers of theHumanist Manifesto II in 1973.[27] In 1975, he co-foundedFund for an Open Society. Its vision is a nation in which people live in stably integrated communities, where political and civic power is shared by people of different races and ethnicities. He led this organization until 1999.
Farmer was named an honorary vice chairman of theDemocratic Socialists of America.
He published his autobiographyLay Bare the Heart in 1985. In 1984, Farmer began teaching at Mary Washington College (now TheUniversity of Mary Washington) inFredericksburg, Virginia.
Farmer retired from his teaching position in 1998. He died on July 9, 1999, of complications fromdiabetes in Fredericksburg, Virginia at the age of 79.[28]
Freedom and equality are inherent rights in the United States: therefore, I encourage young people to take on the task by standing up and speaking out on behalf of people denied those rights. We have not yet finished the job of making our country whole
— Quote chiseled in stone at his memorial at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Several issues ofFellowship magazine of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1992 (Spring, Summer and Winter issues) contained discussions by Farmer andGeorge Houser about the founding of CORE. A conference atBluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, on October 22, 1992,Erasing the Color Line in the North, explored CORE and its origins. Both Houser and Farmer attended. Academics and the participants unanimously agreed that the founders of CORE were James Farmer, George Houser andBernice Fisher. The conference has been preserved on videotape available from Bluffton College.
ISBN 1682260186
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