Farmer, James Leonard, Jr., 1920-1999

Civil rights leader, author, labor organizer, and teacher, James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was born on January 12, 1920, in Marshall, Texas. He earned degrees from Wiley College (1938) and the Howard University School of Divinity (1940). Farmer went on to found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) which played a key role in the Civil Rights movement, particularly in launching the Freedom Rides in the summer of 1961. These bus rides tested the federal interstate transportation accommodations at bus terminals. Combined with other CORE non-violent acts, the Freedom Rides led in part to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Bill of 1964, and to the Civil Rights Voting Act the following year. Farmer is widely recognized as one of the Civil Rights movement's "Big Four," along with Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and Whitney Young of the National Urban League.

In 1998 President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Farmer died on July 9, 1999

James Leonard Farmer Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement "who pushed for nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongside Martin Luther King Jr."[1] He was the initiator and organizer of the first Freedom Ride in 1961, which eventually led to the desegregation of interstate transportation in the United States.[1][2]

In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee of Racial Equality in Chicago along with George Houser, James R. Robinson, Samuel E. Riley, Bernice Fisher, Homer Jack, and Joe Guinn. It was later called the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and was dedicated to ending racial segregation in the United States through nonviolence. Farmer served as the national chairman from 1942 to 1944.

By the 1960s, Farmer was known as "one of the Big Four civil rights leaders in the 1960s, together with King, NAACP chief Roy Wilkins and Urban League head Whitney Young."[2][3][4] James L. Farmer Jr. was born in Marshall, Texas, Farmer was a child prodigy; as a freshman in 1934 at the age of 14, he enrolled at Wiley College, a historically black college where his father was teaching in Marshall, Texas At the age of 21, Farmer was invited to the White House to talk with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt signed the invitation.Farmer earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Wiley College in 1938, and a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Howard University School of Religion in 1941. During the 1950s, Farmer served as national secretary of the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy. SLID later became Students for a Democratic Society.