Farmer, James Leonard (1920-1999), an American civil rights leader, was assistant secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1969 and 1970. He helped set up the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942 and served as its national director until 1966. Farmer guided CORE through marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides (bus rides to test the enforcement of desegregation) (see Congress of Racial Equality). Farmer was one of several black leaders who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
Farmer served as program director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of social welfare at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1966 and 1967.
In 1968, Farmer ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the United States House of Representatives from Brooklyn. In 1976, he became associate director of the Coalition of American Public Employees, a group of labor and professional organizations.
Farmer was born on Jan. 20, 1920, in Marshall, Texas. He graduated from Wiley College in 1938 and from the Howard University School of Religion in 1941. He died on July 9, 1999.
