The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE is a U.S. civil rights organization that played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Membership in CORE is still stated to be open to "anyone who believes that 'all people are created equal' and is willing to work towards the ultimate goal of true equality throughout the world.”

Founding[link]

CORE was founded in Chicago in 1942 by James L. Farmer, Jr., George Houser, James R. Robinson, and Bernice Fisher. Bayard Rustin, while not a father of the organization, was, Farmer and Houser later said, "an uncle to CORE" and supported it greatly. The group had evolved out of the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, and sought to apply the principles of nonviolence as a tactic against segregation. The group's inspiration was Krishna lal Sheridan's book War Without Violence (1939, Harcourt Brace), which outlined Gandhi's step-by-step procedures for organizing people and mounting a nonviolent campaign. Shridharani, a popular writer and journalist as well as a vibrant and theatrical speaker, had been a protege of Gandhi and had been jailed in the Salt March. Gandhi had, in turn, been influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau. At the time of CORE's founding Gandhi was still engaged in non-violent resistance against British rule in India; CORE believed that nonviolent civil disobedience could also be used by African-Americans to challenge racial segregation in the United States.^[1]

In accordance with CORE's constitution and bylaws, in the early and mid-1960s, chapters were organized on a model similar to that of a democratic trade union, with monthly membership meetings, elected and usually unpaid officers, and numerous committees of volunteers. In the South, CORE's nonviolent direct action campaigns opposed "Jim Crow" segregation and job discrimination, and fought for voting rights. Outside the South, CORE focused on discrimination in employment and housing, and also in de facto school segregation.

Some CORE main leadership had strong disagreements with the Deacons for Defense and Justice over the Deacons' public threat to racist Southerners that they would use armed self-defense to protect CORE workers from racist organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, in Louisiana during the 1960s. By the mid-1960s, Farmer was growing disenchanted with the emerging black nationalist sentiments within CORE — sentiments that, among other things, would quickly lead to the Black Panther Party — and he resigned in 1966, to be replaced by Floyd McKissick.^[2]

Civil rights campaigns[link]

Congress of Racial Equality march in Washington DC on 22 September 1963 in memory of the children killed in the Birmingham bombings. The banner, which says "No more Birminghams", shows a picture of the aftermath of the bombing.

By 1961 CORE had 53 chapters throughout the United States. By 1963, most of the major urban centers of the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast had one or more CORE chapters, including a growing number of chapters on college campuses. In the South, CORE had active chapters and projects in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky.

Freedom Rides[link]

On April 10, 1947, CORE sent a group of eight white (including James Peck, their publicity officer) and eight black men on what was to be a two-week Journey of Reconciliation through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky in an effort to end segregation in interstate travel. The members of this group were arrested and jailed several times, but they received a great deal of publicity, and this marked the beginning of a long series of similar campaigns.^[3]

By the early 1960s, Farmer, who had taken a hiatus from leading the group, returned as its executive secretary and sought to repeat the 1947 journey, coining a new name for it: the Freedom Ride.

On May 4, 1961, participants journeyed to the deep South, this time including women as well as men and testing segregated bus terminals as well. The riders were met with severe violence. In Anniston, Alabama, one of the buses was fire-bombed and passengers were beaten by a white mob. White mobs also attacked Freedom Riders in Birmingham and Montgomery.^[4] The violence garnered national attention, sparking a summer of similar rides by CORE, SNCC and other Civil Rights organizations and thousands of ordinary citizens.^[5]

Desegregating Chicago's Schools[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2012)

In 1960, the Chicago chapter of CORE began to challenge racial segregation in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). By the late 1950s, the Board of Education's maintenance of the neighborhood school policy resulted in a pattern of racial segregation in the CPS. Predominantly black schools were situated in predominantly black neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city, while predominantly white schools were located in predominantly white areas in the north, northwest and southwest sides of Chicago.

Many segregated schools were overcrowded, and in order to ease overcrowding, the Board instated double-shifts at some schools. Double-shifts meant that students in affected schools attended less than a full day of class. In another measure to alleviate overcrowding at some schools, the Board sanctioned the construction of mobile classroom units. Moreover, a significant proportion of students dropped out before finishing high school. Faculty was segregated, and many teachers in predominantly black schools lacked full-time teaching experience compared to teachers in white schools. In addition, the history curriculum did not mention African Americans. According to CORE, “school segregation [was] a damaging bacteria, a psychological handicap, which [festered] a disease generating widespread unemployment and crime in Chicago.” ^[6]

Between 1960 and 1963, CORE wrote letters about the conditions of schools to the Board of Education (headed by Superintendent Benjamin Willis), Mayor Richard J. Daley, the Illinois State House of Representatives and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In addition, CORE attended the Board's school budget hearings, speaking against segregation and asking for the Board to implement transfer plans to desegregate the schools. In July 1963, CORE staged a week-long sit-in and protest at the Board office in downtown Chicago in response to the Board's inaction. Finally, Board President Claire Roddewig and Willis agreed to meet with CORE to negotiate integration, but no significant changes came to the schools.

During the mid-1960s, CORE turned towards community involvement, seeking to equip Chicagoans with ways to challenge segregation. Freedom Houses, transfer petitions, community rallies and meetings served to educate Chicagoans about segregation and provide them with tools to circumnavigate the neighborhood school policy.

By 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Chicago's Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), had assumed control over civil rights demonstrations and negotiations. While CORE was a member organization of the CCCO, it increasingly lost influence over desegregation efforts. And when the Chicago Freedom Movement met with representatives of the City to negotiate in the summer of 1966, they agreed on ten fair housing reforms but did not discuss reforms to desegregate the schools. While CORE played no role in the housing summit, it had shifted towards promoting and developing Black power in Chicago. By fall of 1966, CORE was no longer a civil rights organization, but a Black power organization. Changes in CORE's national leadership and continued inaction on behalf of the Board to desegregate the schools pushed CORE towards separatism and away from desegregation efforts. The chapter collapsed in October 1968.

March on Washington[link]

A CORE sign displayed as Robert F. Kennedy speaks to a crowd outside the Department of Justice Building in June 1963

In 1963, the organization helped organize the famous March on Washington. On 28 August 1963, more than 250,000 people marched peacefully to the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal justice for all citizens under the law. At the end of the march Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Freedom Summer[link]

The following year, CORE, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organized their Freedom Summer campaign - aimed principally ending the political disenfranchisement of African Americans in the Deep South. Volunteers from the three organizations decided to concentrate their efforts in Mississippi. In 1962 only 6.7 percent of African Americans in the state were registered to vote, the lowest percentage in the country. This involved the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Over 80,000 people joined the party and 68 delegates attended the Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City and challenged the attendance of the all-white Mississippi representation.^[7]

CORE, SNCC and NAACP also established 30 Freedom Schools in towns throughout Mississippi. Volunteers taught in the schools and the curriculum now included black history, the philosophy of the civil rights movement. During the summer of 1964 over 3,000 students attended these schools and the experiment provided a model for future educational programs such as Head Start.

Freedom Schools were often targets of white mobs. So also were the homes of local African Americans involved in the campaign. That summer 30 black homes and 37 black churches were firebombed. Over 80 volunteers were beaten by white mobs or racist police officers. Three CORE activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan on 21 June 1964 (see Mississippi civil rights workers murders). These deaths created nation-wide publicity for the campaign. ^[8]

CORE since 1968[link]

Since 1968, CORE has been led by National Chairman Roy Innis, who initially led the organization to strongly support Black Nationalism. Subsequent political developments within the organization led it turn more towards the right. CORE supported the presidential candidacy of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. In 1970, CORE voiced its support for racially-separate, segregated schools.^[9] An article in Mother Jones magazine said of the modern organization that it "is better known among real civil rights groups for renting out its historic name to any corporation in need of a black front person. The group has taken money from the payday-lending industry, chemical giant (and original DDT manufacturer) Monsanto, and ExxonMobil."^[10] In his book, Not A Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy, Donald Gutstein wrote that "In recent years CORE used its African-American facade to work with conservative groups to attack organizations like Greenpeace and undermine environmental regulation. It’s fair to say that CORE was for sale to anyone with a need for visible black cheerleaders in its campaign."^[11]

Recently, on same sex marriage and black health in the U.S.: "When you say to society at large that you have to accept, not only accept our lifestyle, but promote it and put it on the same plane and equate it with traditional marriage, that's where we draw the line and we say 'no.' That's not something that is a civil right. That is not something that is a human right," said Niger Innis, national spokesman for CORE, and son of Roy Innis.^[12] COREcares, an HIV/AIDS advocacy, education and prevention program for black women, was dismantled due to pressure from Project 21. Innis is on the board of the conservative Project 21 organization.^{[citation needed]}

According to an interview given by James Farmer in 1993, "CORE has no functioning chapters; it holds no conventions, no elections, no meetings, sets no policies, has no social programs and does no fund-raising. In my opinion, CORE is fraudulent." ^[13]

CORE in Africa[link]

CORE has an African branch based in Uganda, with Fiona Kobusingye as is its director.^[14] CORE has an African branch based in Uganda, with Fiona Kobusingye as is its director.^[15] Bringing attention to the malaria crisis is one of the organization's main activities, and it has championed the use of DDT to fight the disease, and it has partnered with a variety of conservative and libertarian think tanks in this effort.^[11] In 2007, CORE organized a 300-mile walk across Uganda to promote DDT-based interventions against malaria.^[16]

See also[link]

African American portal

• DePorres Club, an affiliate at Creighton University in Omaha
• The New York Foundation

Notes[link]

References[link]

• August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942-1968 (1973; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975). ISBN 0-252-00567-8
• James Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Arbor House, 1985). ISBN 0-87795-624-3

External links[link]

• Civil Rights Greensboro
• Congress of Racial Equality
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans
• "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!" Web site for documentary of Journey of Reconciliation.
• Chris Mooney, Mother Jones, May/June 2005, "Black Gold?" - CORE, ExxonMobil, and "eco-imperialism"
• The Frank J. Miranda Papers document Miranda's activities as CORE activist and one-time chair of the Boston CORE chapter. Located in the Archives and Special Collections of the Northeastern University Libraries in Boston, MA.
• A History of Harlem CORE

Archives[link]

• Congress of Racial Equality, Seattle Chapter, records. 1961-1970. 5 cubic feet (12 boxes). Labor Archives of Washington State, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

Racial equality means different things in different contexts. It mostly deals with an equal regard to all races.

It can refer to a belief in biological equality of all human races.

It can also refer to social equality for people of different races. It is a stated goal of most current political movements. The divergence of any particular society from a state of racial equality is often contested by members of that society of different races.

See also[link]

• Desegregation
• Equality (disambiguation)
• Race (classification of human beings)
• Race and inequality in the United States
• Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system
• Racial integration
• Racial segregation
• Right to equal protection

People

• Ralph Luther Criswell, Los Angeles City Council member, 1925-27, opposed racial equality

This sociology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Niger Innis is the National Spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), MSNBC commentator, and political consultant. He was born in Harlem, New York, and currently lives in Westchester, New York. Innis graduated from Georgetown University in 1990 with a degree in Political Science.^[1][2] He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation, an organization which advocates for male-female marriage.^[3]

Innis has appeared on CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC,^[4] and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. His radio appearances include The Jim Bohannon Show and The Gil Gross Show. He has guest-hosted on The Bob Grant Show & The Barry Farber Show.^[5]

His father, Roy Innis, has been National Director of CORE since 1968.^[6]

See also[link]

Conservatism portal

References[link]

External links[link]

• National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives

This biographical article related to politics in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Roy Emile Alfredo Innis (born June 6, 1934, in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands) is an African American civil rights activist. He has been National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (also known as CORE) since his election to the position in 1968.

One of his sons, Niger Innis, serves as National Spokesman of the Congress of Racial Equality.

Early life[link]

In 1946 Innis moved with his mother from the U.S. Virgin Islands to New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.^[2] At age 16, Innis joined the U.S. Army, and at age 18 he received an honorable discharge. He entered a four-year program in chemistry at the City College of New York. He subsequently held positions as a research chemist at Vick Chemical Company and Montefiore Hospital.^[3]

Early civil rights years[link]

Innis joined CORE’s Harlem chapter in 1963. In 1964 he was elected Chairman of the chapter’s education committee and advocated community-controlled education and black empowerment. In 1965, he was elected Chairman of Harlem CORE, after which he campaigned for the establishment of an independent Board of Education for Harlem.

In the spring of 1967, Innis was appointed the first resident fellow at the Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC), headed by Dr. Kenneth Clark. In the summer of 1967, he was elected Second National Vice-Chairman of CORE.

CORE[link]

Innis was elected National Chairman of CORE in 1968, and has held the position ever since. Initially Innis, headed the organization in a strong campaign of Black Nationalism. White CORE activists, according to James Peck, were removed from CORE in 1965, as part of a purge of whites from the movement then under the control of Innis.^[4] He subsequently became prominent as a conservative activist. CORE supported the presidential candidacy of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. Since taking over CORE, the organization's politics have moved sharply to the right. Left-wing Mother Jones magazine said of the modern organization that it "is better known among real civil rights groups for renting out its historic name to any corporation in need of a black front person. The group has taken money from the payday-lending industry, chemical giant (and original DDT manufacturer) Monsanto, and ExxonMobil."^[5] CORE's original leader James L. Farmer, Jr. said in 1993 that CORE "has no functioning chapters; it holds no conventions, no elections, no meetings, sets no policies, has no social programs and does no fund-raising. In my opinion, CORE is fraudulent."^[6] Some people now call it COREO, citing what Roy the cipher has added to it.

Black nationalism[link]

Innis drafted the Community Self-Determination Act of 1968 and garnered bipartisan sponsorship of this bill by one-third of the U.S. Senate and over 50 congressmen. This was the first time in U.S. history that a bill drafted by a black organization was introduced into the United States Congress.

In the debate over school integration, Innis offered an alternative plan consisting of community control of educational institutions. As part of this effort, in October 1970, CORE filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in connection with Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.

Innis and a CORE delegation toured seven African countries in 1971. He met with several heads of state, including Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Liberia’s William Tolbert and Uganda's Idi Amin, who was awarded a life membership of CORE.^[7] In 1973 he became the first American to attend the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in an official capacity.

In 1973 Innis participated in a televised debate with Nobel-winning physicist William Shockley on the topic of black intelligence.

Criminal justice and the National Rifle Association[link]

Innis has long been active in criminal justice matters, including the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment. After losing two sons to criminals with guns, he became an advocate for the rights of law-abiding citizens to self-defense.^[1] An NRA Life Member,^[1] he also serves on its governing board.^[8][9] Innis also chairs the NRA's Urban Affairs Committee and is a member of the NRA Ethics Committee, and continues to speak publicly in the US and around the world in favor of individual civilian ownership of firearms, gun issues, and individual rights^[1]

A supporter of victims' rights, he has been involved in cases such as: the "subway gunman," Bernhard Goetz; "subway token booth clerk", James Grimes; the "candyman good Samaritan", Andy Fredericks; the "black Bernie Goetz", Austin Weeks; and the accused "remember me subway shooter" Clemente Jackson. Some of his activities include: investigating the Tawana Brawley case, defending the infamous Howard Beach boys who were later sentenced to jail for their 1986 racially-motivated attack; overseeing and participating in a citizen’s anti-drug campaign, "One Street At A Time".^{[citation needed]}

Innis has lost two of his sons to criminal gun violence. His first son, Roy Innis, Jr., at the age of 13 in 1968. His next oldest son Alexander, 26, was shot and slain in 1982.^[10]

Controversy[link]

He was noted for two on-air fights in the middle of TV talk shows in 1988. The first in the midst of an argument about the Tawana Brawley case during a taping of the The Morton Downey Jr. Show, Innis shoved the Reverend Al Sharpton to the floor.^[11] Also that year, Innis was in a scuffle on Geraldo with white supremacist John Metzger.^[12] The skirmish started after Metzger, son of White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger, called Innis an "Uncle Tom."^[13]

Political campaigns[link]

In 1986 Innis challenged incumbent Major Owens in the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District, representing Brooklyn. He was defeated by a three-to-one margin.

In the 1993 New York City Democratic Party mayoral primary, Innis challenged incumbent David Dinkins, the first African-American to hold the office. Given his conservative positions on the issues, he explained that "the Democratic Party is the only game in town. It's unfortunate that we have a corrupt one-party, one ideology system in New York City, and I'd like to change that. But being a Democrat doesn't mean you have to be a fool." During his own campaign, Innis also appeared at fundraising events for the Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani. Innis received 25% of the vote in the four-way race with a majority of his votes coming from multi-ethic areas and while he failed in less culturally diverse Assembly districts. Innes lost to Dinkins who lost to Giuliani in the general election.

In February 1994, his son Niger, who ran his primary campaign, suggested that Innis would also challenge incumbent governor Mario Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

In 1998, Innis joined the Libertarian Party and gave serious consideration to running for Governor of New York as the party's candidate that year. He ultimately decided against running, citing time restrictions related to his duties with CORE .^[14]

Innis served as New York State Chair in Alan Keyes's 2000 presidential campaign.^[15]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Inside NRA: NRA Board Spotlight", American Rifleman: 77, April 2010 
2. ^ Hicks, Jonathan (1993-05-25). "Innis Campaign for Mayor: A Quixotic Quest?". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEFD8173AF936A15756C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
3. ^ "Executive Staff - Roy Innis". Congress of Racial Equality. http://www.core-online.org/Staff/roy.htm. 
4. ^ "Interview with James Peck". Eyes on the Prize. 26 October 1979. http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=main;view=text;idno=pec0015.0499.082. Retrieved 10 April 2010. 
5. ^ Mencimer, Stephanie Mencimer (2009-11-10). "Tea Partiers' Next Target: The Climate Bill". Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/tea-partiers-next-target-climate-bill. Retrieved 2009-11-10. 
6. ^ http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0317,charles,43542,1.html
7. ^ Mitchell, Alison (1993-09-13). "Mayoral Race Is Overshadowed In New York Primary Tomorrow - New York Times". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6DE1E30F930A2575AC0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2. Retrieved 2007-12-13. 
8. ^ "'Ricochet' Goes Behind Scenes of Gun Lobby". National Public Radio. 2007-11-15. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16324652&ft=1&f=5. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
9. ^ Roy Innis re-elected to NRA Board http://www.nrawinningteam.com/bios99/innis.html
10. ^ "THE CITY; 2d Innis Son Slain". New York Times. 1982-02-23. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E4DE133BF930A15751C0A964948260. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
11. ^ Innis Shoves Sharpton To Floor at TV Taping http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/10/nyregion/innis-shoves-sharpton-to-floor-at-tv-taping.html
12. ^ The New Odd Couple: Metzger, Innis Take Their Feud on Road http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-28/entertainment/ca-359_1_roy-innis
13. ^ "Geraldo Rivera's Nose Broken In Scuffle on His Talk Show". New York Times. November 4, 1988. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB071FFB3B5C0C778CDDA80994D0484D81. Retrieved 2010-12-16. 
14. ^ "Innis passes on NY governor's run; mulls New York mayor race in 2001". May 1998. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927205835/http://www.lp.org/lpn/9805-Innis.html. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
15. ^ "Roy & Niger Innis Endorse Alan Keyes for President of the United States." (Press release). 2000-02-11. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-59364233.html. 

External links[link]

• CORE's Official Website
• A history of Harlem CORE

Leo James Terrell, is a Los Angeles, California, based attorney focusing on civil rights and discrimination.

He hosts his own radio talk show discussing social and legal issues ^[1] and has appeared frequently on television. He was the Chairman of the Black-Korean Alliance, an Advisory Board Member for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and a member of the Statewide Commission Against Hate Crimes. Prior to practicing law, Terrell taught high school history, geography and economics. He holds a masters degree in education from Pepperdine University and holds a law degree from UCLA.^[1]

Terrell has appeared on programs such as Nightline, The Larry King Show, Today Show, and Good Morning America, and various radio programs.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Leo Terrell's official website