James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was born January 12, 1920 in Marshall, Texas. He was an exceedingly intelligent student and began attending Wiley College at age fourteen, graduating with his B.S. degree in 1938. From there he went to Howard University School of Divinity before obtaining his B.D. degree in 1941. Eventually, Farmer would become widely recognized as one of the "Big Four" of the civil rights movement. He founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, and gained national recognition in the 1960s for his leadership of the "Freedom Rides" into the South. Farmer's non-violent acts played a significant role in the events leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Civil Rights Voting Act of 1965.

James Farmer also forayed into politics, albeit briefly. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1968, and from 1969-1970, he served in the Nixon administration as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services). By 1971, Farmer returned his focus to activism and education.

In addition to his role as a renowned activist, Farmer was an author, a teacher, and a labor organizer. Beyond his leadership of CORE, he also held a position as honorary vice chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, and was a co-founding member of the Fund for an Open Society, which promoted thriving racially and ethnically integrated communities. In 1985, he began teaching the history of Civil Rights as Commonwealth Professor of History and American Studies at Mary Washingon College. He received the title of Distiguished Professor in 1987, which he held until his retirement in 1998. MWC awarded Farmer an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 1997. In 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Bill Clinton.

Ill health troubled James Farmer for many of his later years. He would eventually lose both of his legs and his eyesight to diabetes, and passsed away from complications of the disease on July 9, 1999.