The Congress of Racial Equality (or CORE) was founded by a group of college students, led by James L. Farmer, in 1942 who believed that nonviolent civil disobedience could be used by African Americans to challenge racial segregation in the southern region of the United States. On April 9, 1947, CORE sent a group of eight white and eight black men on what was to be a two-week Journey of Reconciliation through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky in an effort to end segregation in interstate travel. The members of this group were arrested and jailed several times, but they received a great deal of publicity, and this marked the beginning of a long series of similar campaigns.
