Gordon Carey
Gordon Carey was the Executive of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality when it formed in 1942, in New York. During the Sit-ins in 1955-56, he was particularly vital to the Civil Rights Movement, encouraging the Greensboro Four and others to hold up against the pressures of society both discouraging and physically threatening. As a leading authority of CORE, he believed in the inability to progress without questioning the law, and judicial decisions.
Civil Rights Era
Carey was particularly fundamental to the Freedom Ride effort, having trained several hundred participants in nonviolence. He worked closely with Tom Gaither, a co-CORE member and leader. Carey, and CORE's subscription to a new mode of action, that is, staging sit-ins and making physical statements of resistance, was necessary to advance equality for all and substantiate civil rights every member of the country was entitled to. His contributions are therefore not only considerable, but mark a turn in the movement, namely the use of nonviolence as a tactic. These methods eventually triumphed.
Bibliography
Information for this biography was gathered from the following sources:
- Brooks, Thomas. Walls Come Tumbling Down New York: Prentice Hall, 1974: 159-160.