[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A TRIBUTE TO AN AMERICAN FREEDOM FIGHTER

 Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, as one man who had the privilege to 
march and demonstrate alongside this dedicated pioneer during the Civil 
Rights Movement, and another who has long respected his courage and is 
proud to represent him in the U.S. Senate, we both have enormous 
respect and admiration for James Farmer. Now, all Americans are being 
given the opportunity both to learn more about this man and to 
appreciate his lifetime of contributions to our nation as a civil 
rights activist, community leader and teacher.
  Yesterday, on the birth date of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., 
President Clinton presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our 
country's highest civilian honor, to fifteen distinguished Americans. 
We are grateful that James Farmer, one of the ``Big Six'' leaders of 
the Civil Rights Movement and the father of the Freedom Rides, was 
among them.
  As the Nation prepares to officially celebrate the life and legacy of 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is also fitting that we join the 
President in recognizing one of the great soldiers and leaders of the 
Civil Rights Movement. In the 1940's, while still in his early 
twenties, James Farmer was already leading some of the earliest 
nonviolent demonstrations and sit-ins in the Nation, over a decade 
before nonviolent tactics became a vehicle for the modern Civil Rights 
Movement in the South.
  Early in his academic career, James Farmer became interested in the 
Ghandian principles of civil disobedience, direct action, and 
nonviolence. In 1942, at the age of 22, he enlisted an interracial 
group, mostly students, and founded the Congress of Racial Equality 
(CORE), with the goal of using nonviolent protest to fight segregation 
in America. During these early years, James Farmer and other CORE 
members staged our Nation's first nonviolent sit-in, which successfully 
desegregated the Jack Spratt Coffee Shop in Chicago.
  Five years later, in what he called the ``Journey of 
Reconciliation,'' James Farmer led other CORE members to challenge 
segregated seating on interstate buses.
  In 1961, James Farmer orchestrated and led the famous Freedom Rides 
through the South, which are renown for forcing Americans to confront 
segregation in bus terminals and on interstate buses. In the spring of 
that year, James Farmer trained a small group of freedom riders, 
teaching them to deal with the hostility they were likely to encounter 
using nonviolent resistance. This training would serve them well.
  During the journeys, freedom riders were beaten. Buses were burned. 
When riders and their supporters--including James Farmer and the 
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.--were trapped during a rally in 
Montgomery's First Baptist Church, Attorney General Robert Kennedy 
ordered U.S. marshals to come to their aid and protect them from the 
angry mob that had gathered outside.
  In reflecting on the ride from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, 
Mississippi, James Farmer said, ``I don't think any of us thought we 
were going to get to Jackson * * * I was scared and I am sure the kids 
were scared.'' He later wrote in his autobiography, ``If any man says 
that he had no fear in the action of the sixties, he is a liar. Or 
without imagination.''
  James Farmer made it to Jackson and spent forty days in jail after he 
tried to enter a white restroom at the bus station. On November 1, 
1961, six months after the freedom rides began, the Interstate Commerce 
Commission ordered all interstate buses and terminal facilities to be 
integrated.
  Six years ago, James Farmer told a reporter that while the fight 
against racism in the 1960's ``required tough skulls and guts * * * now 
it requires intellect, training and education.''
  Not surprisingly, James Farmer continues to do his part. Just as he 
taught his freedom riders how to battle segregation over three decades 
ago, he has taught civil rights history at Mary Washington College in 
Fredericksburg, Virginia, for the past twelve years. He teaches his 
students how to remember and how to learn from history.
  James Farmer has, in truth, spent a lifetime teaching America the 
value of equality and opportunity. He has taught America that its most 
volatile social problems could be solved nonviolently. He has reminded 
us of the countless acts of courage and conviction needed to bring 
about great change. He has shown us the idealism needed to act and the 
pragmatism needed to succeed. His respect for humanity and his belief 
in justice will forever inspire those of us privileged to call him 
mentor and friend.
  As we celebrate the Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday, and as we 
honor James Farmer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, let us vow 
to continue to learn. If we truly believe in the idea of the beloved 
community and an interracial democracy, we cannot give up. As a nation 
and a people, we must join together and strive towards laying down the 
burden of race. And we must follow in the footsteps of a courageous 
leader, to whom, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, we can finally 
say: thank you, James Farmer.

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