Founded in 1942 by an interracial group of students in Chicago, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pioneered the use of nonviolent resistance in America’s civil rights struggle. After conducting the country’s first organized sit-in in Chicago in May 1942, CORE continued to use nonviolent techniques to challenge discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment. Further energized by the success of the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott and the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a national figure, CORE members applied their nonviolent tactics to the southern struggle throughout the 1960s.
CORE’s founders, many of whom were members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), were influenced by the philosophy of India’s Mahatma Gandhi. With funding from FOR, CORE held summer workshops on nonviolent direct action from 1945 to 1954. To test the 1946 Supreme Court ruling against segregation on interstate buses, the organization conducted a Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 in which sixteen men, eight black and eight white, were sent on a bus trip through Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Although the riders received intensive training on how to respond nonviolently to hostile opposition, they encountered relatively little violence because the ride was limited to the upper South and did not test segregation in terminals.
CORE’s early growth was concentrated in the North and was primarily among white, middle-class college students. It wasn’t until the student sit-ins of 1960 that CORE attracted support among southern blacks and achieved national recognition. As the sit-ins spread rapidly in the spring of 1960, CORE’s field secretaries advised student activists on nonviolent methods and established new CORE chapters.
Under the leadership of James Farmer, CORE organized the Freedom Rides in 1961. Modeled after the earlier Journey of Reconciliation, the rides took place in the Deep South. In Anniston, Alabama, one of the two buses was firebombed, and its fleeing passengers were forced into an angry white mob. At the Birmingham terminal, local police offered no protection for the second bus. While the violence garnered national media attention, the series of attacks prompted Farmer to end the ride. Several days later students from Nashville resumed the rides with support from the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Following the Freedom Rides, CORE chapters in the North and Midwest focused on desegregation in education, employment, and housing. In the South, the organization concentrated on voter registration. In 1962, CORE, SNCC, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) joined together to form the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) to coordinate the activities of local and national civil rights organizations in Mississippi. Their efforts culminated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964 and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the state’s all-white official delegation at the Democratic National Convention.
The violence experienced by civil rights workers during the summer of 1964 and The Democratic Party’s refusal to seat the entire MFDP delegation left many CORE workers disenchanted with traditional political methods and the tactics of nonviolent resistance. At its 1965 convention, CORE abandoned its commitment to nonviolence and began to limit the involvement of whites in the organization. The following year, Floyd McKissick, an ardent supporter of Black Power, replaced Farmer as national director.
When Roy Innis became director in 1968, CORE turned its focus to black economic development and community self-determination. Headquartered in New York, CORE currently has chapters throughout the United States and in parts of Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean .