James L Farmer Jr.

About

American civil rights activist who led the Freedom Riders. He also helped establish the Congress of Racial Equality.

Before Fame

A child prodigy, he began attending Wiley College at the age of fourteen. He went on to earn an additional degree from the Howard University Divinity School.

Trivia

In the mid-1980s, he published a memoir entitled Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement.

Family Life

He was briefly married to Winnie Christie. With his second wife, Lula Peterson, he had two daughters.

Associated With

He and Diane Judith Nash , fellow leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, were both Freedom Riders (African-American activists who took seats on buses headed to the segregated Southern states).