core
... to register for the draft in his third year at Union Theological Seminary. He then attended U.I.C. to complete his seminary studies. He also worked part time as a F.O.R. field secretary. (Meier, Elliot Rudwick, 5) Joe Guinn was a Negro from Chicago who was later incarcerated as a conscientious objector. Guinn was also head of the N.A.A.C.P. youth council. James R. Robinson was a graduate student in English and was the only non-protestant in the group. He was a white Catholic from upstate New York his interest in pacifism had been active in peace circles while an undergraduate at Columbia University. Many of the students were members of the Chicago branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation an organization looking to change racists attitudes. (Meier, Elliot Rudwick, 5) To become a member of C.O.R.E. you have to believe in non-violence and accept the “Action Discipline” which was modified methods of Gandhi. You also had to be interviewed ,and spied on if you were new in town to be admitted. Non-violence was the early cornerstone of C.O.R.E. and interracialism was the other. The members chose the name Congress of Racial Equality because “...We were a committee of racially equal people...” (Houser) . People often said that C.O.R.E. “ meant that we were working at the core of the problem,” (Houser). C.O.R.E. started the sit-in movement. This movement was caused by a protest by Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain and David Richmand. Black or racially integrated students and C.O.R.E. members would sit down in white-only and refused to move. At the end of 1960 70,000 Black students had participated in a sit-in or marched. The most important demonstration was the Greensboro sit-in. In 1960 sit-ins began to break down the segregation of the upper South, and lunch counters were integrated in cities in Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. (Sit-Ins, 4/5/04) In 1961 C.O.R.E. joined S.C.L.C. and they planned non-violent protests in Georgia, and Birmingham. They were attacked by racists police in Birmingham. This attracted the media. This woke the consciences of whites. The next protest was in Selma, Alabama. This was the worst attack yet. State troopers, local sheriff’s officers, and unofficial possemen used teargas and clubs against the protesters. This time the nation saw. Two days later President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the Voting Rights bill to Congress. On August 6, 1964 the bill became a law. This law banned discriminatory literacy tests and expanded voting rights for non- English speaking Americans. In 1968 nearly 60% of African Americans were registered to vote in Mississippi and many other states made improvements. (The Voting Rights Act of 1965, 4/5/04) On May 4, 1961 the first freedom ride took place in Washington D.C. It was a group of seven black and six whites. The buses were headed into the deep south. Their goal was to see if the verdict in the Boynton v. Virginia case would hold up. Only a few people were severely beaten. They traveled to Birmingham, Alabama and on the way they wer...