(1920 – 1999) Alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy and Bayard Rustin, Farmer is considered one of the principal leaders of the civil-rights movement. He helped found CORE in 1942 and became its director, leading sit-ins and the freedom rides. Freedom When? (1965) revealed his continuing commitment to non-violent resistance, though he began to support some tenets of Black Power, such as black self-determination and local control. He left CORE in 1968 and stood for Congress, losing to Shirley Chisholm, and was appointed assistant secretary of Health, Education and Welfare by Nixon in 1969, but resigned from this position after a year.