Interview with James Farmer, conducted by Dante James on  April 28, 1995, for the Civil Rights Project, Inc.

James Farmer recounts his life in the civil rights movement.

He recalls his earliest experience of racial discrimation in Holly Springs, MS, his formative years at Howard University, the founding of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), sit-ins at establishments that would not serve blacks and the Freedom Rides that galvanized the national conscience.

Farmer also reflects on the effectiveness of pacifism and non-violence.  He describes what it was like to be jailed during this period and the encouragement he found in the singing of his fellow activists.

Farmer expresses some regret at not being able to attend the March on Washington in August, 1963.  At the time, he was in jail in Plaquemines, Louisiana.

At the prompting of Dante James, he briefly reflects on his contemporaries: A.J. Muste, Dorothy Height, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Roy Wilkins, Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, John Lewis, Malcolm X, Stokley Carmichael.  Most of this exchange takes place as wild audio over black on VS.4392.

This interview not done for a series. Interview was conducted by CRPI.