“I don’t see any future for the nation without integration. Our lives are intertwined, our work is intertwined, our education is intertwined.” – James Farmer
During February in the United States, we recall the countless contributions to our country by African-Americans. First established by President Gerald Ford in 1976, Black History Month aims to celebrate the many achievements by black Americans. The civil rights era of American history is especially remembered during February as we honor the true American heroes who risked so much to remind America of its founding values and ideals.
| Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, Whitney Young, James Farmer, during civil rights meeting, Oval Office, White House, White House, Washington, D.C., USA, Yoichi Okamoto, January 18, 1964. (GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group) |
One of the lesser-known giants of the Civil Rights movement. James Farmer was born in Marshall, Texas on January 12, 1920. His father was a theology professor at Wiley College, where James would eventually earn his undergraduate degree before entering Howard University’s School of Divinity in 1938. It was at Howard that Farmer was introduced to the teachings of India’s independence movement leader, Mohandas Gandhi. Farmer would later model his nonviolence and civil disobedience tactics on Gandhi’s.
A respected pacifist, Farmer was granted conscientious objector status during World War Two and joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization. During 1942 Farmer co-founded CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). Throughout the 1940’s CORE would pioneer the non-violent protest movement with its organized sit-ins, jail-ins, and freedom rides. These strategies would be adopted by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement during the 1960’s.
| January 28, 1964 — Civil Rights leaders (l to r) Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Whitney Young meet with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, WAshington, DC, Abbie Rowe Photo. (Abbie Rowe/US National Park Service/GG Vintage Images/Universal Images Group) |
Following one of these freedom rides in 1961, Farmer would be jailed for trying to integrate a restaurant at a Jackson, Mississippi bus terminal. He would be jailed again in 1963 for protesting police brutality in Louisiana, causing him to miss the 1963 March on Washington, which he was due to speak at.
In 1968, Farmer ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in New York, losing to Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. Farmer soon took a position in President Nixon’s administration, working to increase minority roles in the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1998, US President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. Farmer would die a year later, on July 9, 1999 in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
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Source:
Stanford University https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/farmer-james
J. Y. Smith, “Civil Rights Leader James Farmer Dies,” Washington Post, 10 July 1999.