[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 42 (Thursday, April 10, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO JAMES FARMER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOHN LEWIS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 10, 1997

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, 55 years ago this month, the first 
sit-in took place. It was at the Jack Spratt Coffee Shop in Chicago, 
IL. It was conceived, organized, and led by James Farmer.
  Fifty years ago, in 1947, in followup to the 1946 Supreme Court 
ruling that blacks could not be forced to sit in the back of buses 
traveling interstate, Farmer led CORE members in a challenge to the 
practice of segregated seating. On what he called the journey of 
reconciliation, they traveled through Maryland, Virginia, North 
Carolina, and West Virginia. Some members of that group, including 
Bayard Rustin, were arrested and served 30 days on a chain gang in 
North Carolina for having violated local segregation laws.
  These are among the little known but critical events on the road to 
equal rights and equal protection under the law in the United States. 
Better known are the Freedom Rides. James Farmer orchestrated them, 
too.
  Tireless and committed, Jim Farmer led 13 of us--an interracial group 
of young men and women whom he had helped train in the Ghandian 
principles of direct action and nonviolence--on a journey toward 
freedom, through the deep South. There was violence all around. Our 
buses were burned. We were beaten. But, we never turned back.
  The Freedom Rides catapulted Birmingham police commissioner, Bull 
Connor, onto the front page of major newspapers around the world. The 
Freedom Rides opened Bobby Kennedy's eyes to the intransigence of 
Southern segregationists and the need for the Federal Government to 
intervene in the struggle for civil rights. And the Freedom Rides 
brought down the white only and colored signs that had been hung over 
every bus seat, terminal bench, toilet, and water fountain in the 
South.
  Although he was one of the ``Big Six'' leaders of the civil rights 
movement, a planner of the 1963 march on Washington and scheduled to 
speak at the march, Jim Farmer didn't make it to the march. He was in 
jail in Louisiana at the time; and, while he could have been released, 
he chose to stay with the 200 others who had marched in Plaquemine 
earlier in the week protesting the inhumane treatment of black people 
in that parish.
  Almost a month later, the Plaquemine protesters were released. 
However, the only way Farmer was able to escape Louisiana was in a 
coffin in the back of a hearse. The State troopers had vowed to find 
him and kill.
  Referred to as a ``young negro aristocrat,'' Farmer was born in 
Texas, where his father was the first black person to earn a Ph.D. 
degree. Today, he is 77 years old. He is blind. He has lost the use of 
both of his legs. He is not in good health.
  He is still teaching at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, 
VA, where is he Distinguished Professor of History and American 
Studies. He continues to inspire his students and all those who come in 
contact with him to set goals, direct their actions, lead, be creative, 
have vision and keep the faith.
  I invite my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to James Farmer, 
one of our Nation's greatest heros, his work, his legacy, and his life.

                          ____________________