Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE), founded in Chicago in 1942, crusaded for equality
through nonviolence and integration. It came to North Carolina
on a 1947 southern bus during a "Journey of Reconciliation,"
when an interracial group that included North Carolinians faced
arrest for not riding in segregated seats. By 1963 CORE had nine
chapters in the state, hundreds of members (many of them student
activists), and leaders such as black attorney Floyd B.
McKissick  (1922-91), who became chairman and later national
director of CORE. Like its 1961 Freedom Ride , CORE's voter
education projects and sit-in campaigns helped energize the
struggle for civil rights in North Carolina . In 1966 the
organization embraced Black Power, emphasizing self-
determination over nonviolent direct action. Jeffrey J. Crow,
Paul D. Escott, and Flora J. Hatley, A History of African
Americans in North Carolina (2002). Floyd B. McKissick, Three-
Fifths of a Man (1969). August Meier and Elliott Rudwick,