| The Congress of Racial Equality Returns to New Orleans
by Keith Weldon Medley
ON August 6, 1988, Xavier University was the site of the first reunion for former members of the Congress of Racial Equality. During the early sixties, this 46-year-old civil rights group launched “Freedom Rides,” sit-ins, voter registration drives, and other campaigns to remove racial barriers. Through CORE, many young New Orleanians became involved in the struggle for equality. Among the national figures who attended the reunion were CORE’s founder, James L. Farmer, past legal counsel and executive director, Floyd McKissick. Local CORE activists included federal Judge Robert Collins, Attorney Lolis Elie, Issac Reynolds, Man Suarez, Rudy Lombard, Dr. Henry Mitchell and others. For three days, this group of “Movement” veterans relived the times they changed, remembered fallen comrades and recorded for posterity their unique and dramatic role in American civil rights history... |
