Chicago Chapter, Congress of Racial Equality Archives

Organization History

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in Chicago in 1942 as the Committee of Racial Equality (the organization underwent a name change in 1944) by African American and white student activists who were staunch believers in pacifism and committed to the abolition of racial discrimination. Under the leadership of James Farmer and George Houser, both of whom were students at the University of Chicago, CORE pioneered the use of nonviolent tactics, such as sit-ins, jail-ins, picket lines, freedom rides, and other forms of civil disobedience to assault segregation in public accommodations, housing, education, and employment. By the 1960s, CORE emerged as one of the leading civil rights organizations in the nation.

During its early years, CORE was primarily “a loose collection of chapters dependent on volunteers rather than a true national organization.” It organized sit-ins and picket lines to protest segregation in public accommodations and had success in integrating public facilities throughout the North. Yet despite these successes, the organization began to decline during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It struggled to obtain “the funds necessary to employ a staff and create a permanent administration,” suffered from internal disagreements over leadership and strategies, and consequently witnessed the closing of several of its chapters.

One of the chapters that became inactive during this period was the Chicago chapter – CORE’s founding chapter and once one of the organization’s most active and militant chapters. During the 1940s and 1950s, the Chicago chapter succeeded in desegregating several Chicago restaurants and businesses such as the White City Roller Rink in 1946. It reorganized in the early 1960s and mounted hard-hitting campaigns against de facto segregation in schools, housing, and employment. For example, in 1963, the chapter sat in at the Board of Education to protest the construction of mobile classrooms for overcrowded black schools. It also fought for the elimination of slum housing and led open housing campaigns. On September 4, 1966 Chicago CORE chairman Robert Lucas led over 250 marchers through Cicero to demand desegregation of housing. The efforts of the Chicago chapter typified CORE activities in the North during the 1960s.

On the national level, CORE was revived in the mid-1950s because of the continued dedication of its remaining members as well as a renewed sense of purpose gained from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. CORE decided to channel the majority of its energies on the South. In 1955 the organization provided the Montgomery bus boycott with its philosophical commitment to nonviolence and dispatched LeRoy Carter, an African American field secretary, to provide support. When the Greensboro sit-ins began in February 1960, CORE members rushed to North Carolina to provide guidance for action and organized demonstrations to support the protesters. In the summer of 1961 CORE organized the Freedom Rides, a series of confrontational bus rides throughout the South by African American and white CORE members to end segregated interstate buses and terminals. CORE also cosponsored the March on Washington, participated in President John F. Kennedy’s Voter Education Project, and contributed leadership and resources to the Mississippi Freedom Summer project.

In 1966 James Farmer – who became the organization’s first national chairman and national director in February 1961 – retired from CORE. He was succeeded by Floyd B. McKissick. McKissick’s election marked a drastic shift in the organization’s philosophy and tactics, from nonviolence and interracialism to Black Power and nationalism. Two years later, in 1968, CORE underwent another shift when McKissick was replaced by Roy Innis. With Innis at the helm, CORE became politically conservative on issues ranging from civil rights legislation and foreign policy to gun control and welfare. Consequently, many lifetime CORE members, including Farmer, severed all ties with the organization.