Congress of Racial Equality

The Freedom Rides and Other Bold Actions

In 1947 Houser organized the Journey of Reconciliation, a joint project of FOR and CORE, to test a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals by sending an interracial group by bus from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. Houser and Rustin were among 13 “Freedom Riders” who met with no serious opposition until they reached North Carolina, where they canceled the trip. The same year CORE began an annual summer Washington Interracial Workshop, where college students gained hands-on experience in nonviolent efforts to eliminate segregation in the nation's capital, sitting in at drug store lunch counters and demonstrating at theaters, park playgrounds, and pools.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) members carry picket signs outside Columbia University in New York City in support of employee demands for union representation in 1964. CORE volunteers were recruited on many college campuses from 1962 to 1964, and Brooklyn CORE sought to prevent access to the 1964 New York World's Fair on its opening day unless executives agreed to hire more minorities.

By 1954, the year of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and of the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, CORE and its local affiliates had achieved a great deal in eliminating racial barriers in some communities in the north. Some in FOR thought CORE had become too radical and confrontational, while others in CORE wanted it to take radical stands on issues unconnected with race. FOR determined to end financial and staff support for CORE, so [Page 562]CORE had to reorganize. Houser stepped down but continued on an ad hoc national action committee with James and Lula Farmer, James Robinson, LeRoy Carter, and James Peck in 1954–57. FOR sent Houser on an extended African trip from April through October 1954, followed by a nationwide speaking tour in 1955. He left FOR and CORE to work on ending apartheid in South Africa. In another reorganization in 1957, Robinson became executive secretary and the National Action Committee was given official status.

...