About James Farmer - James Farmer Multicultural Center (2024)

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Why is James Farmer important to Texas history? ›

James Farmer (born January 12, 1920, Marshall, Texas, U.S.—died July 9, 1999, Fredericksburg, Virginia) was an American civil rights activist who, as a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), helped shape the civil rights movement through his nonviolent activism and organizing of sit-ins and Freedom Rides, ...

James Farmer co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality in 1942. The organization aimed at "erasing the color line through methods of direct nonviolent action." CORE followed the approach used by Gandhi in India's fight for independence.

1985 -1998 – Served as Distinguished Professor of History and American Studies at Mary Washington College.

In 1942, he and a group of college students founded the Committee of Racial Equality in Chicago, Illinois. The organization was later renamed as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Farmer served as the national director of the organization from 1961 until 1966.

Farmer later described the Freedom Rides as his "proudest achievement." CORE had pioneered the tactics that eventually dismantled segregation in the South.

Farmer earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Wiley College in 1938, and a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Howard 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.

Marshall

James L. Farmer, Jr. / Places lived

Established in 1908 as the Fredericksburg Teachers College, the institution was named Mary Washington College in 1938 after Mary Ball Washington, mother of the first president of the United States, George Washington.

President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1998. He died the following year at age 79.

How old is James Farmer Jr. in The Great Debater? ›

The movie explores social constructs in Texas during the Great Depression, from day-to-day insults African Americans endured to lynching. Also depicted is James Farmer, who, at 14 years old, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school (and who later went on to co-found the Congress of Racial Equality).

In 1942, civil rights leader James Farmer founded an interracial organization called the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to confront urban segregation in the North.