Congress of Racial Equality

A pioneering organization in the civil rights movement, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was established in 1942 by a group of white and African American activists. The founders of CORE had previously been active in the Chicago chapter of the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. CORE was intended to be an interracial organization dedicated to ending racial inequality through protest according to Gandhian principles of nonviolence.

CORE would establish crucial precedents in the techniques used by civil rights activists of the 1960s and beyond. After a 1946 Supreme Court decision forbade segregation on trains and buses used in transportation across state lines, black and white CORE activists launched a freedom ride on April 9, 1947, to test the implementation of that ruling in the upper South. CORE also sponsored summer sessions from 1947 to 1954 to instruct new activists in nonviolence and direct action tactics.

After the 1960 sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, direct action protests became the tactic of choice for civil rights groups. CORE's experience positioned it as mentor to the new student activists entering the civil rights movement, and it soon extended its work from the upper to the lower South. Under the leadership of national director James Farmer, who served from 1961 to 1966, CORE entered its most prominent period in the civil rights struggle. CORE pioneered the jail-in tactic, in which incarcerated civil rights workers would stay in jail rather than pay fines or bail. It launched a freedom ride in May 1961 to test another Supreme Court decision that barred segregation in interstate travel terminals and facilities. It also participated in a number of key civil rights moments, including the 1963 March on Washington and Freedom Summer in 1964.

By 1965, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts convinced many in CORE that direct action protest might have reached the limits of its effectiveness. Debates arose regarding the search for new techniques, CORE's continued commitment to nonviolence, and the role of whites in the civil rights movement. Northern CORE activists also urged the organization to try to improve the conditions of African American life in urban neighborhoods. CORE began to focus on generating racial solidarity and activism within black communities based on their particular needs. Yet the organization fractured as separatist, black nationalist ideologies gained more influence in the civil rights struggle. Farmer resigned in 1966 and was succeeded as national director by the avowed nationalist Floyd McKissick. The turn away from integration had alienated many of CORE's white supporters and donors and saddled the organization with financial problems. Roy Innis replaced McKissick as national director in 1968, and CORE continues to concentrate on black community organizing and economic empowerment.