The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background". To combat discriminatory policies regarding interstate travel, CORE participated in Freedom Rides as college students boarded Greyhound Buses headed for the Deep South. As the influence of the organization grew, so did the number of chapters, eventually expanding all over the country. Under the leadership of Roy Innis from 1968 to his death in 2017, the group moved to the political right and markedly declined in prominence.
History
Founding
CORE was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1942. The organization's founding members included James Leonard Farmer Jr., Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray, George Mills Houser, Elsie Bernice Fisher, Homer A. Jack, Robert Chino, and James R. Robinson. Of the 50 original founding members, 28 were men and 22 were women, roughly one-third of them were Black, and the other two-thirds white. Bayard Rustin, while not a founding member of the organization, was, as Farmer and Houser later noted, "an uncle to CORE" and provided it with significant support. The group had evolved out of the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, and sought to apply the principles of nonviolence as a tactic against racial segregation.
The group was inspired by Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi's support for nonviolent resistance.Homes, George. "The Congress of Racial Equality" Indian writer and journalist Krishnalal Shridharani, who was known as a vibrant and theatrical public speaker, had been a protege of Gandhi—being jailed with him in the Salt March—and whose 1939 book War Without Violence heavily influenced the organization. During the period in which CORE was founded, Gandhi's leadership of the independence movement in India against British colonial rule was reaching its apogee. CORE sought to apply the nonviolent anti-colonial tactics pioneered by Gandhi and his followers to successfully challenge racial segregation and racism in the United States through civil disobedience.Meier and Rudwick, CORE, pp. 3–23.Sudarshan Kapur, Raising up a Prophet. The African-American encounter with Gandhi (Boston: Beacon Press 1992), pp. 117-123, 137-138, 162 (CORE and Farmer); 7-8, 120-122, 150 (Shridharani).
In accordance with CORE's constitution and bylaws, in the early and mid-1960s, chapters were organized on a model similar to that of a democratic trade union, with monthly membership meetings, elected and usually unpaid officers, and numerous committees of volunteers. In the South, CORE's nonviolent direct action campaigns opposed "Jim Crow" segregation and job discrimination, and fought for voting rights. Outside the South, CORE focused on discrimination in employment and housing, and also in de facto school segregation. Jim Crow laws are laws that enforce racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.
Some of CORE's main leadership had strong disagreements with the Deacons for Defense and Justice over the Deacons' public threat to racist Southerners that they would use armed self-defense to protect CORE workers from racist organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, in Louisiana during the 1960s. Others strongly supported the organization. By the mid-1960s, Farmer tried to incorporate elements of the emerging black nationalist sentiments within CORE—sentiments that, among other things, would quickly lead to an embrace of Black Power. Farmer failed to reconcile these tensions, and he resigned in 1966, but he backed his replacement, Floyd McKissick.Meyer and Rudwick, CORE, pp. 374–408.
By 1961 CORE had 53 chapters throughout the United States. By 1963, most of the major urban centers of the Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast had one or more CORE chapters, including a growing number of chapters on college campuses. In the South, CORE had active chapters and projects in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky.
Irene Morgan In 1944, Irene Morgan, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to move from the front "white" seating section to the back "colored" seating section of a Greyhound interstate bus while traveling from Virginia to Maryland. After the Virginia state court upheld her conviction and arrest, Morgan's case was brought before the Supreme Court with Morgan v. Virginia on June 3, 1946.
Morgan v. Virginia Initially, Morgan's legal team only included Spottswood Robinson III, but they were later joined by NAACP lawyers Thurgood Marshall and William H. Hastie. They used the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution, which declared that states could not impose rules that interfered with passengers crossing state lines, as the prevailing tactic to argue her case. However, Virginia state courts did not find this argument convincing.
Contrarily, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Irene and asserted that the Virginia Legislature could not impose segregation among interstate bus travelers. This landmark ruling would go on to inspire CORE members to seek out non-violent ways to push back against segregation outside of the court system.
Freedom Rides
Journey of Reconciliation On April 10, 1947, CORE sent a group of eight white men, including James Peck, their publicity officer, and eight black men, on what was to be a two-week Journey of Reconciliation through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to test state's compliance with the Supreme Court's decisions regarding segregation within interstate travel.Meier and Rudwick, CORE, pp. 33–39.
The group was composed of men only, to get around certain laws of the time that restricted the mixing of males and females. These participants then underwent rigorous training aimed at equipping them with the necessary skills to react non-violently, even in the face of violent behaviors. They would act out intense role-playing exercises to simulate real-life scenarios they may encounter, in an attempt to improve their resolve in the face of violence. Throughout the two-week period, they completed twenty-six demonstrations on buses or trains. Out of these twenty-six demonstrations, six resulted in arrests. The members of this group received a great deal of publicity, and this marked the beginning of a long series of similar campaigns.
After 75 years the North Carolina court vacated the convictions of four freedom fighters from the Journey of Reconciliation. Renee Price, chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners, learned that the charges against these men arrested in Chapel Hill had never been dropped. "They were arrested and convicted for violating laws that were in fact a violation to humanity, a violation to human dignity and a violation to freedom and justice for all," said Price. She reached out to Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour, whose office researched the incident and legal cases. On June 17, 2022, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour vacated and dismissed the charges in a Special Court Session which drew over 100 people into the very courtroom where the men were sentenced.
The First "Freedom Ride" In the early 1960s, James Farmer resumed his position as executive secretary of CORE, with the objective of replicating the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, only this time under a new name - the Freedom Ride.
On May 4, 1961, male and female participants started their journey through the deep South, testing segregated bus terminals as well. The riders were met with severe violence. In Anniston, Alabama, one of the buses was fire-bombed and passengers were beaten by a white mob. White mobs also attacked Freedom Riders in Birmingham and Montgomery.Freedom Rides ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive The violence garnered national attention, sparking a summer of similar rides by CORE, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and other civil rights organizations and thousands of ordinary citizens.Meier and Rudwick, CORE, pp. 135–145.
Desegregating Chicago's schools
In the 1960s, the Chicago chapter of CORE began to challenge racial segregation in the Chicago Public Schools, addressing disparities in educational opportunities for African American students. By the late 1950s, the Chicago Board of Education's maintenance of a neighborhood school policy had resulted in a pattern of racial segregation. Predominantly black schools were situated in predominantly black neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city, while predominantly white schools were located in predominantly white areas in the north, northwest and southwest sides of Chicago.
Many predominantly black schools were very overcrowded. To ease overcrowding, the board instated double shifts at some schools, which helped with the overcrowding but provided new issues. Double shifts meant that students in affected schools attended less than a full day of class. In another measure to alleviate overcrowding at some schools, the school board approved the construction of mobile classroom units. Moreover, a significant proportion of students dropped out before finishing high school. Many teachers in predominantly black schools lacked full-time teaching experience compared to teachers in white schools. In addition, the history curriculum did not mention African Americans. According to CORE, "school segregation [was] a damaging bacteria, a psychological handicap, which [festered] a disease generating widespread unemployment and crime in Chicago".CORE Rebuttal to CBS Standpoint editorial broadcast program, January 16, 1964, Chicago, CHM, CORE Papers, Box 2.
Between 1960 and 1963, CORE wrote letters addressing the conditions of schools to various authorities, including the Board of Education (led by Superintendent Benjamin Willis), Mayor Richard J. Daley, the Illinois House of Representatives, and the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, advocating for improvements in educational equality. In addition, CORE attended the school board's budget hearings, speaking against segregation and asking for the board to implement transfer plans to desegregate the schools. In July 1963, CORE staged a week-long sit-in and protest at the board office in downtown Chicago in response to the board's inaction. Finally, Board President Claire Roddewig and Willis agreed to meet with CORE to negotiate integration, but no significant changes came to the schools.
During the mid-1960s, CORE turned towards community involvement, seeking to equip Chicagoans with ways to challenge segregation. Freedom Houses, transfer petitions, community rallies and meetings served to educate Chicagoans about segregation and provide them with tools to circumnavigate the neighborhood school policy.
By 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Chicago's Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), had assumed control over civil rights demonstrations and negotiations. While CORE was a member organization of the CCCO, it increasingly lost influence over desegregation efforts. And when the Chicago Freedom Movement met with representatives of the city to negotiate in the summer of 1966, they agreed on ten fair housing reforms but did not discuss reforms to desegregate the schools. While CORE played no role in the housing summit, it had shifted towards promoting and developing Black power in Chicago. By the fall of 1966, CORE was no longer a civil rights organization, but a Black power organization. Changes in CORE's national leadership and continued inaction on behalf of the Board to desegregate the schools pushed CORE towards separatism and away from desegregation efforts. The chapter collapsed in October 1968.
Desegregating Durham