Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is a significant civil rights organization founded in Chicago in 1942 by a group of young activists advocating for nonviolent direct action against segregation and racial discrimination. Initially, CORE operated as a volunteer organization, collaborating with groups like the Fellowship of Reconciliation to initiate the Freedom Rides in 1947, intended to challenge and test the desegregation of interstate travel as mandated by the Supreme Court. Throughout the 1960s, CORE gained prominence through its involvement in pivotal events such as the Greensboro sit-ins and the March on Washington, advocating for voter registration, fair housing, and employment opportunities while working alongside other civil rights organizations.
However, by the mid-1960s, CORE began to adopt a more radical stance, moving away from its original nonviolent philosophy and embracing "black power." This shift included a leadership change, with Floyd B. McKissick taking over from James Farmer. As CORE distanced itself from integrationist ideals, its influence within the broader civil rights movement diminished, leading to a decline in membership through the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, CORE had significantly reduced in size and impact, often regarded as a shell of its former self, partly due to its evolving philosophy and alignment with black nationalist perspectives.
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Congress of Racial Equality
Significance: The Congress of Racial Equality helped to eliminate discrimination in interstate travel on buses and trains and to end discrimination in both the public and private sectors of society, especially in housing and employment.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in Chicago in the spring of 1942 by fifty young people who were committed to nonviolent direct action in their opposition to segregation and racial discrimination. Although James Farmer, the first national director of CORE, is often given credit for the founding of CORE, George Houser, Bernice Fisher, Homer Jack, Joe Guinn, and James Robinson also played substantial roles.
Initially, CORE was a volunteer organization. Along with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, CORE began the Freedom Rides in 1947. These early rides were called “journeys of reconciliation.” They consisted of integrated teams of young adults traveling throughout the upper South on interstate buses testing the 1946 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation in interstate travel.
CORE gained much of its reputation for its participation in the student sit-ins and the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s. The Freedom Rides were a response to the 1960 Supreme Court ruling expanding its 1946 decision. The Court decreed that train and bus terminals used by passengers engaged in interstate travel must also be desegregated. Arrests and violence followed the two integrated CORE teams in 1960 as they sought to force the hand of the federal government. With the assistance of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), they were successful in forcing the Interstate Commerce Commission to institute new penalties for noncompliance with the decreed desegregation.
During the first half of the 1960s, CORE carried on a number of concurrent campaigns around the country. While the national office focused on voter registration, local CORE chapters concentrated on desegregating lunch counters and roadside restaurants and fighting for fair housing practices, equal employment opportunities, and school integration. CORE participated in demonstrations, boycotts, and marches with the SCLC, SNCC, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). CORE took a leadership role in the 1963 March on Washington and was one of the ten civil rights organizations that met with President John F. Kennedy before the march.
In 1964, CORE began to move away from nonviolent direct action and political neutrality, and by 1966, it had developed a political action program and was active in community organizing. CORE eventually broke with the nonviolent integrationist philosophy and joined the ranks of the more radical activist groups. CORE embraced “black power” and replaced James Farmer with Floyd B. McKissick as its national director.
The anti-integration posture assumed by CORE tended to push it more and more to the fringe of the Civil Rights movement. Membership in CORE dwindled during the 1970s and 1980s, and by the 1990s, it had experienced such a drop in membership and support that it was only a shell of its former self. Many attribute its decline to a change in philosophy and to the black nationalist position it took in the 1960s.
Bibliography
Garner, Carla W. "Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)." Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture. Ed. James S. Baugess and Abbe A. Debolt. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012. 147–52. Print.
Hall, Simon. Peace and Freedom: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements in the 1960s. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. Print.
Purnell, Brian. Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2013. Print.