Farmer was granted conscientious objector status during World War II and became race relations secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization.Ī year later, in 1942, Farmer co-founded CORE with an interracial group of University of Chicago students. Upon earning his BD in 1941, he declined ordination as a Methodist minister because “ I did not feel I could preach the gospel in a segregated church ” (Shepard, “ A Life on the Front Lines ” ). After graduating from Wiley College in 1938, he enrolled in the Howard University School of Divinity, where he first encountered the teachings of the Indian independence leader, Mohandas K. Throughout his life, Farmer recounted the story of his mother having to explain why she couldn’t buy him a soft drink at a drugstore, an experience he said inspired him at an early age to fight injustice. When Farmer was six months old, his family moved to Holly Springs, Mississippi. Thanks to Martin Luther King, it was a household word ” (Farmer, 188).įarmer was born on 12 January 1920, in Marshall, Texas, where his father taught theology at all-black Wiley College. Farmer credited Martin Luther King and the Montgomery bus boycott with educating the public on nonviolent tactics: “ No longer did we have to explain nonviolence to people. Our lives are intertwined, our work is intertwined, our education is intertwined ” (Smith, “ Civil Rights Leader ” ). In a 1997 interview, Farmer said: “ I don’t see any future for the nation without integration. As co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), James Farmer was one of the major leaders of the African American freedom struggle.