James L. Farmer, Jr.

Farmer paid for the movement in jail time. The Handbook of Texas says that after joining the 1961 Freedom Rides he spent 39 days in Mississippi's Parchman Prison, and that in 1963 he was jailed in Plaquemine, Louisiana, so he missed the March on Washington. He published Freedom, When? in 1965 and resigned as CORE's director in 1966 over its increasingly militant direction. He left the federal health, education and welfare post in late 1970 or early 1971, citing frustration with the administration's civil rights record, and published his autobiography, Lay Bare the Heart, in 1985.

What the plaque says

James L. Farmer, Jr. Civil Rights leader James Leonard Farmer, Jr., son of Pearl (Houston) and Dr. James l. Farmer, Sr., was born in Marshall where his father was a professor at Wiley College. The family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and Austin, Texas, before returning to Marshall in 1930. James Farmer, Jr., entered Wiley College at age 14 and joined the famous debate team led by Melvin Tolson and was challenged with discussions about inequality. In 1938, Farmer entered the Ministerial Program of Howard University, Washington, D.C., under the direction of Howard Thurman, a student of Mahatma Ghandi and nonviolent philosophy techniques to achieve social change. Inspired by Thurman and Tolson, Farmer turned his attention to civil rights and moved to Chicago in 1941. In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which trained civil rights leaders in Ghandi-inspired nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to protest racial discrimination. Under his leadership, CORE organized the first sit-ins of restaurants in Chicago. In 1961, CORE organized the freedom rides into the Deep South, led by Farmer. CORE, other organizations for equality and James Farmer, Jr., were instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. In 1968, Farmer ran unsuccessfully on the Liberal party ticket, backed by the Republican party, and was appointed Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in 1969. Farmer also worked as a union organizer and lecturer, as well as a professor at Amherst College and Mary Washington College. In 1998, President Clinton awarded Farmer the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Farmer died on July 9, 1999. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harrison County Historical Museum — steps away
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.3 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.4 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Joe Weisman and Company — steps away
• The Hub Shoe Store — steps away
• Sam Houston's 1857 Campaign in Marshall — steps away
• Site of Marshall Masonic Female Institute — steps away