Talk:Congress of Racial Equality/Archive 1

Since 1972
Has it not done anything since 1972? Tim Long 16:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's a shell controlled by Roy Innis and used a front for right-wing lobby groups. Some direct quotes from former members and other groups might be useful in establishing whether this view is correct, or at least whether it is widely-shared. JQ 05:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a very biased comment. The buzzword "right-wing" is often used to describe conservative groups. The label "left wing" is used far less often. Attaching the label "right-wing" serves to close people's minds and discourage a truly fair and balanced critical evaluation of a person or organization. It's time to recognize that there is diversity within the Black community as there is in all groups and that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do not speak for all Blacks. It's interesting to note that news item released today reports that Al Sharpton is decrying the promotion of gangsterism within the Black community and Hollywood. Roy Innis has been saying this for years. Somehow when Sharpton says this it becomes acceptable.

BIASED statement in article: "Since 1968, CORE has been led by National Chairman, Roy Innis. Subsequent political developments within the organization led it more and more to the right, leading it to support the presidential candidacy of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972." The tone of this comment is that it is bad for a civil rights organization to support republican candidates. Again, use of "right" and "right wing" serve to close people's minds and discourage debate and dialogue. More neutral language would be to state that CORE is a conservative civil rights organization.

BIASED COMMENT: "I think it's a shell controlled by Roy Innis and used a front for right-wing lobby groups." Now, would you also say that the Rainbow coalition is just a shell controlled by Jesse Jackson and used as a front for left-wing lobby groups?


 * It's obvious, and Wikipedia's Rainbow Coalition/PUSH article confirms it that the Rainbow Coalition is controlled by Jesse Jackson. It's also obvious that it's leftwing, but (unlike with CORE) no-one is likely to be surprised by this. On the other hand, unlike CORE, it's not a shell (it has lots of real branches and real members), and its not used a front for lobby groups - it has its own agenda.JQ 05:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I tried to give some credible, if generally to the Left, sources for the criticism. I feel that saying "it's a shell" bluntly, and without support, would be inappropriate for an article. However stating that a leading former member called it "fraudulent" is simply reporting an opinion. Also I toned down the part about moving to the Right.--T. Anthony 03:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

CRITICISM
Under the critcism line I saw it noted:

Critics charge that since taking over the organization in 1968, Roy Innis has moved it sharply to the right. The Village Voice says that in the early 1990s, co-founder James L. Farmer, Jr. stated that, in his opinion, CORE was "fraudulent."[2] It also faced criticism from the liberals and progressives. The organization refused to acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Black Americans are dying of AIDS, and an advocacy and education program for black women was cancelled.[3]

I checked the noted source and saw no note of CORE refusing to acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Black Americans are dying of AIDS. Thusly I am removing it. --Hokgwai 04:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Politcal Campaign
This article fails to mention any of CORE's involvment in the March On Washington, Floyd McKissick nor the Freedom Schools. I am adding more material to this section unless there is contention with this. --Hokgwai 04:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Freedom Rides
the article never tells us what a freedom ride is exactly —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.6.159.63 (talk) 20:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

C.O.R.E. and Big Tobacco
While mining the Legacy Tobacco Document Archive for documents related to Africa Fighting Malaria, Roger Bate, and other groups promoting DDT, i found this letter from CORE-CA. In it they say, in part: The Congress of Racial Equality-California (CORE-CA) indulges the tobacco industry/companies, namely : Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, Lorillard Tobacco Company, Phillip Morris Incorporated, R .J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Liggett Group, Inc ., and United States Tobacco Company to positively consider : • Hiring CORE-CA as a consultant/liaison representing African American's tobacco related issues in Los Angeles and California. Our initial fee is $1,000,000 per tobacco company per year, based on expenses primarily related to programs' development (a detailed budget to be prepared pursuant to the tobacco companies and CORE-CA dialogue). The long term view, preparing for the 21~` century, extends these relations ten years... Anyone know what this is all about? Yilloslime 00:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

CORE SINCE 1968
In this line it was noted:

More recently, CORE has been vocally against same-sex marriage: "When you say to society at large that you have to accept, not only accept our lifestyle, but promote it and put it on the same plane and equate it with traditional marriage, that's where we draw the line and we say 'no.' That's not something that is a civil right. That is not something that is a human right," said Niger Innis, national spokesman for CORE. In recent times it has been praised by the conservative Project 21 organization.[1]

I checked the reference and saw note mention of CORE, nor it's National Spokesman Niger Innis speaking against same sex marriage. Additionally I saw no mention of Praise from Project 21.

I am removing these lines unless someone would like to contest or help support the statements above. --Hokgwai 04:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Replaced with a link to CORE stating Niger Innis affiliation with Project 21. JQ 03:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

An HIV/AIDS advocacy, education and prevention program for black women was dismantled[citation needed].

''There is NO citation for this so I am removing this note. If someone has the citation for this note, PLEASE post it.''

 In 1966, James Farmer one of the founders of CORE, said in a Village Voice interview: "this organization has become fraudulent and now existed only to serve the Innis Dynasty".[2]

''I am also removing this because the citation is INCORRECT. The citation lead to an article on Niger Innis. A correct citation must be posted. It is a known fact Roy Innis has been Chairman of CORE since, 1968. How could Framer make this comment in 1966?? If he made this comment, can someone please post the correct citation?? Thank you.'' --Hokgwai2 23:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The article cited in reference to the statement that Idi Amin was given a life membership and supported by CORE doesn't seem to back it up; it says merely that Amin was "befriended" by CORE and gives no other detail. I think the statement should be eliminated or another source found and cited. 71.60.227.14 (talk) 04:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

OPENING LINE
The second paragraph of the opening description: which contains the quote from James Farmer: ''According to an interview given by original leader James L. Farmer, Jr. in 1993, today's CORE "has no functioning chapters; it holds no conventions, no elections, no meetings, sets no policies, has no social programs and does no fund-raising. In my opinion, CORE is fraudulent." [1] '' Is also repeated in CORE since 1968, and is redundant since the exact same quote is being used twice. Thusly I am removing it for it's redundnacy--Kishi2323 (talk) 04:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Since 1968
The line notes: ''Since 1968, CORE has been led by National Chairman Roy Innis, who initially led the organization to strongly support Black Nationalism. However, subsequent political developments within the organization led it turn more towards the right.'' Using the word "However" connotates there is a contradiction between Black Nationalism and positions to the "right" (ie being conservative). It is debatable what is considered to be "conservative" or "to the right" in relation to Black Nationalism. Black Nationalism in contrast to Integration during the Civil Rights Era could be considered "conservative" and to the right since Black Nationalists wanted to focus more on Black self-empowerment within it's own communities rather than putting it's interests in integrating with other communities as a means of empowerment. Thusly I am removing the "however".--Kishi2323 (talk) 04:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Removed Contradictory Paragraph
I removed the following paragraph from the top introduction: "In 1968 Roy Innis was elected to lead CORE and the organization's ideological stances progressively shifted away from the right, even advocating some apparently neoconservative/progressive political positions." The purpose of the intro is to introduce CORE, not take up the cudgels of political controversy that has a whole section devoted to it later in the article. The removed paragraph refers to shifting CORE away from right-wing politics, but at this point in the article there has been no explanation or justification that CORE was engaged in right-wing politics prior to 1968. Brucehartford (talk) 17:00, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Restoring vandal's deletion
I've restored the content deleted by the vandal and tagged it with a cn. The vandal in question is clearly here to disrupt the project as evidenced by his contributions and talk page. Much of this article would benefit from improved referencing, but that is not a good reason to remove material. aprock (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Reviewing the tag:references removed:, it's clear this article has been under sustained attack by IP editors. aprock (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This edit: indicates that at least one of the IPs is affiliated with CORE. aprock (talk) 14:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Intro
The intro on this really needs to be rewritten. My head hurts from the bias. danzig138 (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

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CORE website news items not updated since 2009; Membership and Online Store tabs not working
As I write in late 2021, it would appear the CORE website news has not been updated for 12 years, and there is no way for new members to join online, or for anyone to buy CORE merchandise online. Does this speak poorly for the organization's health, or is that an "original research" type of question? – •Raven .talk 06:55, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Probably not something that could be included in the article directly. Definitely worth following up on that observation and seeing if it has been mentioned in any RS, though. Freelance-frank (talk) 11:24, 26 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Well for one 'data point', Roy Innis died in 2017, at the age of 82. "In the later years of his leadership, the organization was reported to be mired in debt." See more details from NYT. – •Raven .talk 22:42, 5 November 2021 (UTC)


 * And see: History News Network (Feb. 2019): Why the Congress of Racial Equality Has Been Forgotten – And Why It Still Matters Today ("Former members of CORE have been so demoralized by what Innis has done that they distanced themselves and gave up.") – •Raven .talk 22:50, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

CORE website updated... and its HQ moved from NYC to Las Vegas... really truly?
As has updated on May 22, CORE has a new website, thecongressofracialequality(dot)org. The donation page there gives its address as in Las Vegas NV rather than in NYC as the previous website stated. However, it still says Roy Innis (who died in January 2017) is National Chairman. I've updated some infobox details and some ref-links to match, and noted Innis's death date in the infobox.

The NYC address ref (if you look back when the article listed it) was "Charity Navigator - Unrated Profile for Congress of Racial Equality Inc", an EIN of 27-0910193, now no longer found; but archived from 2016, shows the category "Human Services - Multipurpose and Other".

The Las Vegas version is listed in Charity Navigator as "Congress of Racial Equality-Core" with an EIN of 30-0454763 — under the category "Financial Counseling, Money Management".

As a possible explanation for the move: Roy's son Niger Innis, now National Spokesman for CORE, ran in 2014 for Nevada's 4th Congressional District, which includes North Las Vegas, the location of the new address. Possibly his name, rather than his father's, should be in the inbox — but as he's not mentioned on the "CORE Leadership" page of the CORE website itself, only elsewhere, we'd be departing from that source. (Still using secondary sources, e.g. this, though.) – •Raven .talk 06:11, 24 May 2022 (UTC)


 * It looks like they still exist but are not real active. Their News section is very stale... stuff from years ago, Obama administration. It's clear that Niger Innes is their spokesman and probably their chairman -- "probably" doesn't cut it so I removed that field from the infobox. There seems to be no news in the media about CORE for some time... so our only sources are stale. I can't find if Innis the chairman now, or if not who is.


 * Our article Niger Innis is multiply tagged; it describes Innis only as the "spokesman" for CORE, but there's no ref for that and the other refs are near ten years old. The article is being actively edited tho, but apparently a lot is by a CORE person.


 * The last sentence of their history section says "CORE provides immigration services to immigrants in the preparation of petitions and applications to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. CORE also provides classes for immigrants in fields such as English and American Civics in its center in Nevada." But the ref for that goes to a page on their website that just says "congressofracialequalityis coming soon"... but their website at that URL has existed since July 2020. It's been updated a bit since then, to be fair. "Core facts" section is about 9/11 which was 20 years ago.


 * It looks like there's nobody home at their website. We can't trust anything on their website and anything ref'd to that has be changed to "citation needed" if not removed. Herostratus (talk) 12:44, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yep, see previous section from late last year, discussing their (his?) previous website. Different URL but same problem of old contents. The change of geographical address (originally footnoted to Charity Navigator in the infobox) is what twigged the different names, EINs, and categories of the two COREs in Charity Navigator's records. – •Raven .talk 17:03, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIST 121 - U.S. History since 1877
— Assignment last updated by Public-historian-90 (talk) 19:25, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

New Article Bodies Being Added
Hello! There seemed to be some important information on two chapters of CORE in New York City, the Brooklyn and the Harlem chapters. Because of this, Brwolfgang21 and I are adding two article bodies detailing their contributions and overall impact throughout their time being active. FishCactus13 (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2023 (UTC)