James Leonard Farmer Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He “pushed for nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongside Martin Luther King Jr.” In 1942, he helped found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He also organized the first Freedom Ride in 1961, which played a key role in ending segregation on interstate transportation in the United States.
When he was young, Farmer co-founded the Committee of Racial Equality in Chicago with George Houser, James R. Robinson, Samuel E. Riley, Bernice Fisher, Homer Jack, and Joe Guinn. The group later focused on ending racial segregation in the United States through nonviolent methods. Farmer was the national chairman from 1942 to 1944.
James Leonard Farmer Jr. was born on January 12, 1920, in Marshall, Texas, US.
James L. Farmer Jr. grew up in Marshall, Texas, during a time when racial discrimination was enforced by law in the Southern States. His father, James K. Farmer Sr., was a Methodist minister and taught at Wiley College in their hometown.
When Farmer was ten, his Uncle Fred, Aunt Helen, and cousin Muriel visited from New York. They easily got a sleeping compartment on the train to Texas, but were concerned about the return trip. In Texas, trains were segregated, and Black passengers often had to accept lower-quality accommodations.
Farmer went with his father to the train station to arrange the return trip. His father persuaded the manager to give his uncle a sleeping car room, but Farmer realized his father had lied to make it happen. He was shocked. On the way home, his father explained, “I had to tell that lie about your Uncle Fred. That was the only way we could get the reservation. The Lord will forgive me.” This experience led Farmer to dedicate his life to ending segregation.
Farmer was a child prodigy. In 1934, at age 14, he started as a freshman at Wiley College, a historically Black college connected to the Methodist Church. He joined the debate team, where Melvin B. Tolson, an English professor, became his mentor.
Farmer married Winnie Christie in 1945. She became pregnant soon after their wedding. When she found a provocative note from another girl in Farmer’s coat pocket, she became upset. She later suffered a miscarriage, and the couple divorced soon after.
A few years later, Farmer married Lula A. Peterson, who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. Doctors advised them not to have children because pregnancy was believed to worsen her illness. Years later, they got a second opinion and Lula was encouraged to try. She had a miscarriage first, but then gave birth to their daughter, Tami Lynn Farmer, on February 14, 1959. Their second daughter, Abbey Farmer, was born in 1962.
Freedom and equality are basic rights in the United States. I encourage young people to stand up and speak out for those who are denied these rights. Our work to make the country whole is not yet finished.
— Quote chiselled in stone at his memorial at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Several issues of Fellowship magazine of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1992 (Spring, Summer and Winter issues) contained discussions by Farmer and George Houser about the founding of CORE. A conference at Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, on October 22, 1992, Erasing the Color Line in the North, explored CORE and its origins. Both Houser and Farmer attended. Academics and the participants unanimously agreed that the founders of CORE were James Farmer, George Houser and Bernice Fisher.
