James Farmer, Civil Rights Leader

E-113

James Leonard Farmer was born in Texas on 12 Jan. 1920. In 1942, he and other Civil Rights leaders founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Chicago. CORE used Gandhi-inspired tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest discriminatory practices against blacks. Under Farmer's leadership, in the spring of 1961, CORE organized "Freedom Riders" to desegregate interstate transportation in the Deep South. He was an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1969-1970). Farmer taught at Mary Washington College (1985-1999) and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. Farmer died on 9 July 1999. His house stands east of here.

Department of Historic Resources, 2000

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

James Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (Fort Worth, Tex.: Texas Christian University Press, 1998); Charles Lowery and John F. Marszalek, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Present (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), 182-183; Who’s Who in America, 53rd Edition, Volume 1, 1999, Vol. A-K (Wilmette, Ill.: Marquis Who’s Who, 1998), 1333; “Black History: Virginia Profiles, James Farmer,” http://www.gateway-va.com/pages/bhistory/1998/farmer.htm (30 August 2000).