CORE

Founded 1942 “Principles of nonviolence as a tactic against segregation.”
 * Congress of Racial Equality **

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 by a group of students in Chicago. Some of the early member’s were George Houser , James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin. CORE was against segregation and used nonviolent actions in seeking to promote civil rights in America through better race relations and ending racial descrimination. The organization conducted lots of marches and protests to try get their point across to the public and media. It focused on activites directed towards the desegregation of public accomodations in Chicago, later expanding its program to sit-ins in the south.  They decided to get eight black Americans and eight white Americans to go on a two week pilgrimage through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Their aim was to try and get people to accept that whites and blacks are equal. Some of the members of the CORE and the NAACP were against the process though because they thought it would “result in wholesale slaughter with no good achieved." The people travelled along and got arrested a couple of times - it was surprising to see that when they got caught that the judge was more harsh on the white protestors then the black ones. For example, when they got caught the judge, Henry Whitfield, announced that “It's about time you Jews from New York learned that you can't come down her bringing your niggers with you to upset the customs of the South. Just to teach you a lesson, I gave your black boys thirty days, and I give you ninety" (Unknown, 2006). The march they did for this received a great deal of publicity and was the start of a long campaign of direct action by the Congress of Racial Equality. The CORE helped segregation a lot and it was one of their main successes.

CORE gained national recognition by sponsoring (1961) the Freedom Rides, a series of confrontational bus rides throughout the South by interracial groups of CORE members and supporters that ultimately succeeding in ending segregation on interstate bus routes, for which they received an award for the Advancement of Democracy in 1948. CORE was one of the sponsors of the 1963 civil-rights march on Washington

Photographed by Thomas J. O'Halloran.

Bibliography

Photograph - [] Photographer: Thomas J. O'Hallorn, 22 September, 1963

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[] Author: Congress for Racial Equality. Updated: 2006.

[] Author://The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia// Updated: 2007

[] Author: //Spartacus//

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[] Author: //Encyclopedia Britannica//