Adam Jones

• BA Combined Honours
• C.O.R.E in the Capital: a microstudy of the Congress of Racial Equality in Washington D.C, 1948-1953.

The Congress of Racial Equality has a long, varied history. Founded in 1942 by an interracial group of Chicago students, C.O.R.E would go on to be, variously: pioneers of civil disobedience and direct action in the late 1940s and early 1950s, largely inactive for in the mid- to late-1950s, a key player in the mainstream Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, and a part of the more extreme black power movement of the late-1960s.

This project sought to understand the institutional culture of C.O.R.E, and thereby how the conditions were created which allowed the organisation’s structure, aims, and position within the Civil Rights Movement to fluctuate so wildly. Thus, local chapters of C.O.R.E across the United States throughout the 1940s,’50s, and ‘60s were examined, as well as the National Executive, to gain an understanding of the organisation’s overarching issues.

The key theme which emerged was the conflict between the organisation’s fundamentally democratic principles with largely autonomous local branches, and the more practical need to establish the organisation as a national movement pulling in one direction- The C.O.R.E Tug Of War.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Dr Benjamin Houston