James Farmer was a civil rights activist and one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He is best remembered for staging nonviolent protests against racial discrimination in America. He worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and was one of the 'Big Six' of the Civil Rights Movement who helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He worked for the pacifist group Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and was the co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He initially served as the national chairman of CORE and was later elected the national director of the organization. He organized and led the Freedom Ride, which immensely contributed to the desegregation of interstate transportation in the United States. He briefly served as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under Republican President Richard Nixon, but later left politics to become a teacher. He wrote the autobiography Lay Bare the Heart and inspired the feature films 'The Great Debaters' and 'Mississippi Burning'. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.
