[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 50 (Thursday, April 24, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1870-H1872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE TO JAMES FARMER, CIVIL RIGHTS FREEDOM FIGHTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis] is recognized 
for the remaining 18 minutes of the hour of the gentleman from North 
Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].


                             General Leave

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks on the subject of my special order today.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker I rise to pay tribute to one of the 
last of a special breed of freedom fighters, James Farmer. His voice 
has been strong and reliable; his leadership, invaluable. However, 
James Farmer has never sought the limelight. In the course of history 
and fate, he has not been given his due. We owe it to ourselves and to 
the unborn generations to stop and pay tribute to this great man, and 
that is why we are here tonight, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the District of 
Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his great 
generosity in yielding to me. First, in light of some unavoidable 
scheduling difficulties, I will be brief, but I believe I had to come 
forward, because, Mr. Speaker, I was in the nonviolent army of Jim 
Farmer, and if I may say so, in the nonviolent army where one of the 
commanders was the gentleman who has the remaining period, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis].
  He and I, because we were in that army, needed to come forward to pay 
tribute to a man who, as the gentleman from Georgia has said, many in 
America do not know, but who everybody knew in the 1960's when he led 
the nonviolent marches, and encouraged Americans to remain nonviolent 
in the face of what might otherwise have been temptations into 
violence.
  The name of James Farmer is, indeed, a name that will go down in 
history as one of the great civil rights leaders of the 20th century. 
James fought the brutality of racism through nonviolent means, making 
him one of the Nation's most recognizable and influential black leaders 
in the 1960's.

                              {time}  1845

  In 1942, Jim Farmer and several Christian pacifists founded the 
Congress of Racial Equality with the goal of using nonviolent Gandhian 
tactics to challenge American racism. Under his leadership, the 
Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE as it became called, began a 
campaign of sit-ins which successfully ended discrimination in two 
Chicago restaurants in 1947. Later he would be appointed the executive 
director of CORE, and in 1961 his group would initiate the famous 
freedom rides throughout the Deep South. The gentleman from Georgia 
will tell you all about those rides.
  Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and other 
courageous black men of the early civil rights movement, Jim Farmer was 
no stranger to the danger of organizing nonviolent demonstrations in 
the tumultuous South of the 1960's. Jim Farmer literally put his life 
on the line more than once in the struggle for civil rights. In 1963, 
outside the town of Plaquemine, LA, a mob of State troopers hunted for 
him after he organized nonviolent demonstrations. He said and I am 
quoting him: ``I was meant to die that night, they were kicking open 
doors, beating up blacks in the streets, interrogating them with 
electric cattle prods.'' And remarkably, Jim made his escape by playing 
dead in the back of a hearse which carried him along back roads out of 
town.
  This articulate and charismatic leader continued to spread the method 
of nonviolent demonstrations throughout the country. Under his 
direction, CORE organized voter registration and civil protests like 
the 1964 demonstration at the New York World's Fair to protest black 
conditions in that city. In 1966, Jim Farmer resigned from CORE and a 
leadership role and went on to continue his work in civil rights in 
other ways. As president of the Center for Community Action, he 
championed adult literacy. His service with the Department of Health, 
Education and Welfare was noteworthy for programs increasing black 
employment in the agency under President Richard Nixon. Later he would 
direct the Council on Minority Planning and Strategy here in 
Washington.
  The gentleman from Georgia, several other Members of Congress and I 
have written the President to ask that the Medal of Freedom be awarded 
to this great American who was among the class of the great civil 
rights leaders of the 1960's. He is, Mr. Speaker, today blind. He has 
lost the use of both of his legs. And yet with the indomitable 
determination for which he was known in his younger years, he continues 
as a distinguished professor of history and American studies at Mary 
Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA.
  This is a very distinguished American. He helped originate the 
nonviolent approach that saved our country from race war. One of the 
originators of this approach among the young people, I must say, Mr. 
Speaker, was the gentleman from Georgia, who perhaps more than any man 
in America suffered physically for his commitment to nonviolence. But 
he would be the first to note his gratitude to a man who was his senior 
and the leader of us all because we were young whippersnappers learning 
from the likes of Jim Farmer.
  Few if any countries have solved so serious a problem, so deep a 
problem as American racism nonviolently. Martin Luther King, Jr., was 
not the only apostle of nonviolent resistance and peaceful approaches 
to breaking down racial barriers. He is only the best known. One of the 
very best known of course continues to serve in this Congress, and that 
is the gentleman from Georgia. But the fact is that in these days, when 
we decry violence in our country, we would do well to look to the 
leadership of those who were willing to die for nonviolent change.
  The moment of civil rights triumph may be a distant memory to some.

[[Page H1871]]

 After all, we are a generation removed, but certain ideas never lose 
their currency and one of those ideas is equality. Another of those 
ideas is racial harmony. And Jim Farmer stood proudly for both and 
would stand proudly for both today. The President of the United States, 
Mr. Speaker, has said that race relations is one of the priorities of 
his second term and well it might be.
  Mr. Speaker, we ought to be worried about race relations in our 
country today, so many of us are comfortable, the smaller the group. 
The fact is that when the gentleman from Georgia and I were young 
troops in the nonviolent armies of the South, I think it fair to say 
that there was greater communication often across racial lines than 
there is today. We are not nostalgic about the past, but there are some 
parts of the past that I would like to recall. One way to recall and to 
pay a debt the country owes is for President Clinton to award the Medal 
of Freedom to an American hero, a man who suffered for it, a man who 
stood on principle and a man who taught America that its gravest social 
problem could be solved and could be solved nonviolently.
  The life of Jim Farmer recalls us to first principles, brotherhood 
and sisterhood, if you will, racial equality and racial and ethnic 
harmony. These are great American principles. They have had their ups 
and they have had their downs, but they are and must remain with us in 
perpetuity. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his great generosity 
in yielding to me.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman 
from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] for those very moving words. 
We are grateful for her leadership, for coming here tonight to 
recognize Jim Farmer.
  Mr. Speaker, we really did not hear a lot about nonviolence as a part 
of the early civil rights movement until the Montgomery bus boycott in 
1955. But that was actually almost 15 years after the use of Gandhian 
principles in the struggle for civil rights. Jim Farmer, this brave 
warrior, did it first.
  When Jim Farmer graduated from the School of Theology at Howard 
University in 1941, he went to work for a pacifist organization in 
Chicago, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Farmer had been studying the 
nonviolent techniques and teaching of Gandhi. He marveled at the 
success of Gandhi's 1930 salt march to the sea. He suggested to the 
Fellowship of Reconciliation that they find ways to use Gandhi 
techniques, civil disobedience, direct action, and nonviolence in the 
battle against segregation. The Fellowship of Reconciliation, better 
known as FOR, did not take his suggestion. It did not attempt to 
discourage him but said that it would not sponsor such activity at that 
time. So Jim enlisted some of his friends, an interracial group, mostly 
graduate students at the University of Chicago, and they founded what 
they called CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality.
  One evening after a CORE meeting, Jim and a white friend stopped by 
the Jack Spratt Coffee Shop. Farmer wanted to order a doughnut. He was 
told that he could not be served. Farmer told the waiter that he was 
violating State law by refusing to serve him. The waiter said, fine, 
that doughnut will be $1. The usual selling price was 5 cents.
  The next day Farmer came back with about 20 of his friends. The 
whites in the group were served; the blacks were not. But no one would 
eat until everyone was served. They very calmly explained that it would 
be rude to do otherwise. The result was that they all ended up sitting 
there all day.

  For 3 or 4 days they came back to Jack Spratt Coffee Shop first thing 
in the morning and tied up almost every seat for almost all of the day. 
It did not take Jack Spratt long to give in and serve everyone. Farmer 
sent them a nice letter thanking them for changing their policy. This 
was our Nation's first nonviolent sit-in. That was April 1942, 55 years 
ago this month.
  Gandhi's technique of civil disobedience, direct action, and 
nonviolence has worked. Jim Farmer was right. Fifty years ago, in 1947, 
Farmer led CORE members in a challenge to the practice of segregated 
seating on buses traveling interstate. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled 
the year before that blacks could not be forced to ride in the back of 
the bus. On what he called the journey of reconciliation, they traveled 
through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Some 
members of that group included Bayard Rustin. Three were arrested and 
they served 30 days on a chain gang in North Carolina for having 
violated local segregation laws. But in 1961, Farmer organized the 
Freedom Ride. He came here to Washington on May 1, 1961; 13 of us, 7 
whites and 6 blacks, Farmer, like myself, who was one of the original 
freedom riders. In May 1961, we left Washington, DC to travel 
throughout the South.
  Some of us pretended during those workshops to be white and some said 
horrible things and beat others of us up. We discussed what we could 
expect on the freedom ride. We resisted violence. We practiced being 
nonviolent. We prayed. We prepared ourselves for the worst. Three days 
later, we set out on the Freedom Ride on May 4, 1961.
  Officials in the southern States knew we were coming. Jim had sent 
them letters in advance. Virginia and North Carolina took down their 
white-only and colored-only signs that had been hanging in the bus 
station. We had no problem there. South Carolina was a different story. 
When we arrived in a little town called Rock Hill, there were young men 
waiting for us. They would not allow us to enter the waiting room. I 
explained to them my rights under a Supreme Court decision and they 
clubbed each one of us.
  But Farmer had trained us well. My eyes, like others', were on the 
prize. Nothing could stop me or the others. We were on a mission.
  When we got to Birmingham, Bull Connor, the chief of police, had his 
officers put newspapers on the bus windows so that we could not see 
out. When we arrived on the scene, he ordered the troopers to take us 
into protective custody. They put us in jail where we stayed until the 
next day.
  We went on a hunger strike. You see, that was one of the techniques 
of nonviolence Jim Farmer had taught us. The media attention would be 
focused on our hunger strike, and Bull Connor would not want to risk 
our getting sick or starving on his watch. By going on a hunger strike, 
we were going to force Bull Connor to change his behavior, to change 
whatever plans he may have had for us and treat us differently than he 
may have otherwise. It worked.
  But the next day, Bull Connor drove us 150 miles to the State line 
and told us to get out. We walked and walked until we found a black 
couple that took us in and fed us. We called fellow students in 
Nashville, and they came to pick us up and took us back to Birmingham 
to resume the ride. I guess Bull Connor must have thought these young 
people are like fleas. We can get rid of them. But that is what Jim 
Farmer taught us. Go on, get under their skin.
  Mr. Speaker, James Farmer, this good and decent man, taught us how to 
practice the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence. Jim Farmer 
was one of the big six of the civil rights movement, and with each of 
us Jim was scheduled to speak at the March on Washington in 1963. But 
rather than coming to the March on Washington, he was arrested and 
placed in jail in a parish in Louisiana. And he stayed there with the 
people rather than coming to speak at the March on Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, let me close tonight by saying, James Farmer is not in 
good health tonight. But he is still teaching at Mary Washington 
College where he is a distinguished professor of history and American 
studies. He continues to inspire his students and all those who are 
blessed as I was to come in contact with him, to set goals, direct 
action, to be creative, to have a vision, and keep the faith.
  Mr. Speaker, as a nation and as a people, we are more than lucky, but 
we are blessed to have had this man in our midst to lead American 
people toward the creation of a truly beloved community, toward the 
creation of an interracial democracy. So we are doing the right thing 
here tonight, Mr. Speaker, by honoring this great man, James Farmer.
  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, 55 years ago, James Farmer had the tenacity 
and passion to organize and lead the first sit-in at the Jack Spratt 
Coffee Shop in Chicago, IL. This director of the Congress of Racial 
Equality [CORE] during the height of the civil rights movement is still 
around to tell what it was like at the helm.

[[Page H1872]]

  Farmer's determination grew from an early incident. At the age of 
3\1/2\, he learned about racism for the first time when he was denied a 
Coca-Cola because of the color of his skin in Holly Springs, MS. From 
that day forward, he was burdened with a desire to bring about racial 
harmony and equality.
  James Farmer is the last of the ``Big Four'' civil rights movement 
leaders. The other three coleaders of the civil rights movement of the 
1960's are not around to tell their stories and give their historical 
perspective on America. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern 
Christian Leadership Conference, Roy Wilkins of the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Whitney Young of 
the Urban League are now deceased.
  However, James Farmer is still with us. 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, 
blind and he has lost the use of both legs.
  As we approach a new millennium, Americans and the world are still 
trying to bring about racial justice and understanding; a philosophy 
Farmer espoused when he began training an interracial group of 13 young 
people in the nonviolent techniques of Gandhi. To ensure that this 
history is never lost, it is fitting that Mr. James Farmer be awarded 
the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his meritorious contributions to 
our society.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to add my voice to those of my 
colleagues in appreciation of and respect for a quiet hero, Mr. James 
L. Farmer. During the turbulent 1960's, he rightfully earned his place 
as one of the ``Big Four'' in the civil rights movement along side the 
other giants: Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Though famous for founding the Congress for Racial Equality, James 
Farmer was an unassuming, modest man. For that reason, many Americans--
African-American as well as white--are unaware of the invaluable 
contributions he made to the civil rights movement, and, even more 
importantly, to the fulfillment of America's underlying principles and 
goals for all of its citizens. We call on President Clinton to honor 
James Farmer by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  Sadly, few who are familiar with photographs of James Farmer taken in 
the sixties when he orchestrated the first Freedom Rides would 
recognize him today. At 77, he is blind, suffers from severe diabetes, 
and has been forced to undergo several amputations. Even now, he is 
hospitalized, recovering from the latest operation to remove his left 
leg above the knee.
  By where James Farmer's body may be weak, his achievements remain as 
strong as any man's. He continues his life-long work, teaching a 
popular civil rights course at Mary Washington College in my State. And 
the textbook for that class is his autobiography. The achievements of 
the civil rights movement are in large part the achievements of James 
Farmer. And the time is right to honor his achievements. Let him just 
this once feel the applause, receive the accolades, and hear the words 
of thanks from a grateful nation.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to join in paying tribute to one 
of our Nation's heroes in the battle for racial equality. A man of 
unwavering faith and steadfast devotion to his people and his Nation, 
James Farmer has devoted his whole life to the cause of racial harmony 
and individual justice. James Farmer is a man of vision who infused a 
generation of black Americans with the spirit and strength of 
nonviolent protest against the scourge of racism and injustice. Through 
countless contributions and endless personal sacrifices, James Farmer 
has played a critical role in profoundly changing the course of our 
Nation's history.
  Mr. Speaker, I am personally grateful to Farmer for the support and 
inspiration he gave to me and to so many others at a critical time in 
the history of the civil rights movement. Farmer founded the Congress 
on Racial Equality. CORE was the catalyst for challenging and 
overcoming the entrenched segregation and racism that incarcerated 
black Americans and sentenced all Americans to a nation of unfulfilled 
promises, lost to its once cherished vision of freedom and equality. It 
was unfortunate that Farmer was unable to address the Great March on 
Washington, his remarks had to be read by someone else because he was 
jailed in Plaquemine, LA.
  James Farmer was a founding father of the 20th century civil rights 
movement. In the beginning, there were only a handful who committed 
themselves to banishing segregation and building a colorblind nation. 
Although their numbers were few, their dedication was enormous. In just 
a few short years Farmer saw his followers grow from dozens to hundreds 
to thousands; under his leadership the Freedom Riders rose up and 
changed the direction of a nation.
  Mr. Speaker, it was my privilege to have worked with CORE in the 
1950's and the 1960's. It was my privilege to be among those sent to 
jail for our peaceful protest at the Jefferson Bank in St. Louis. And, 
it has been a privilege to have spent my career fighting for equal 
rights and social justice. James Farmer has been a source of courage 
and strength to me and to thousands of others. All who cherish racial 
harmony are grateful to James Farmer for his wisdom and guidance and 
devotion. James Farmer is a man of peace and good will. He will be 
forever appreciated and celebrated for a life service to his people and 
his Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I salute James Farmer and urge President Clinton to 
award this outstanding American the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

                          ____________________