Florida Memory is administered by the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services, Bureau of Archives and Records Management. The digitized records on Florida Memory come from the collections of the State Archives of Florida and the special collections of the State Library of Florida.

DLIS Logo
State Archives of Florida
  • ArchivesFlorida.com
  • State Archives Online Catalog
  • ArchivesFlorida.com
  • ArchivesFlorida.com
State Library of Florida
  • Library.Florida.gov
  • State Library Online Catalog
Related Sites
  • Division of Library and Information Services
  • Florida Electronic Library
  • Museum of Florida History
  • Florida Department of State
  • Division of Library and Information Services
  • State Archives of Florida
  • Listen: The World Program
Florida Memory Logo Florida Memory Logo
  • Discover
    • Photographs
      Photographs
      • About the Florida Photographic Collection
      • Photo Collections
      • Share Your Knowledge
      • Disclaimer and Copyright
    • Historical Records
      Historical Records
      • Voter Registration Rolls, 1867-68
        Reconstruction era voting records
      • Early Auto Registrations, 1905-1917
        Florida's first automobile registrations
      • Florida's Historic Constitutions
        Milestones in Florida's political framework
      • Selected Documents
        Letters, ephemera and other historical records
      • Florida Governors' Records
        Documenting Florida's chief executive officers
      • VIEW ALL
    • Maps
      Maps
      • Browse by Geographic Scope
      • Browse by Coverage
      • Browse by Image
      • Browse by Format
      • Browse by Subject
    • Audio
      Audio
      • Florida Folklife Program Recordings
      • Florida Folk Festival Recordings
      • WPA Recordings
      • Selected Audio
      • Florida Memory Radio
    • Video
  • Learn
    • About Florida Memory
      About Florida Memory
      • Founding and Mission
      • What We Select
      • Digitization Guidelines
      • Harmful Content Statement
      • Disclaimer and Copyright
      • Partnerships
    • Classroom
      Classroom
      • Learning Units
      • Primary Source Sets
      • Florida History Day
      • History Months
      • Projects
    • Floridiana Articles
    • Exhibits
      Exhibits
      • Significant Documents
      • Florida in World War I
      • Florida in World War II
      • Florida Maps: Then & Now
      • Florida Folklife Collection
      • The Koreshan Unity
      • Daguerreotype to Digital
      • Timeline
      • Photo Exhibits
      • VIEW ALL
    • Research Tools
      Research Tools
      • Guide to Florida Governors and the Florida Cabinet
      • Guide to Civil War Records
      • Guide to Black History Collections
      • Guide to Women's History Records
      • Guide to New Deal Records
      • Guide to the Koreshan Unity Papers
      • Guide to Genealogical Research
      • Guide to Florida Films
      • VIEW ALL
  • Share
    • Order
    • Connect With Us
    • Donate Records
  • Accessibility Menu
    ×
    Change Background Color
    • Default
    • Dark Contrast
    • Desaturate
    • Invert
    Change Font-Size
    • Default
    • Large
    Change Font
    • Muli
    • Open-Dyslexic
    Cursor
    • Default
    • Large
    • Reading Guide
    Highlight Links
    • On
    • Off

Shopping Cart

View Cart Checkout
Home Learn Classroom Primary Source Sets Primary Source Set: Patricia and Priscilla Stephens and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Primary Source Set
Patricia and Priscilla Stephens and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

In the summer of 1959, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized the Miami Interracial Action Institute and taught attendees principles of non-violent direct action to combat inequality in the South. Two attendees, sisters Patricia and Priscilla Stephens, took these principles with them when they returned to Tallahassee for school and formed the Tallahassee chapter of CORE.

Using tactics they learned at the CORE workshop, the Stephens sisters held their first sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Tallahassee on February 13, 1960 and a second sit-in at the same lunch counter a week later, leading to the arrest of the sisters and a group of other students. Rather than pay their fines, eight students opted for jail time, effectively launching the first jail-in of the civil rights movement.

The eight jailed students and CORE were suddenly thrown into the national spotlight. CORE used the opportunity to draw attention to their organization.

Image credit: Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) letterhead, 1960.

(State Archives of Florida)


Show full overview

Documents

CORE Rules for Action Pamphlet, ca. 1957

CORE Rules for Action Pamphlet, ca. 1957

Patricia Stephens and sister Priscilla at a CORE workshop in Miami.

Patricia Stephens and sister Priscilla at a CORE workshop in Miami.

CORE members during sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter in Tallahassee.

CORE members during sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter in Tallahassee.

"Suggestions for CORE Pickets," February 26, 1960

Florida A&M University students on a protest march - Tallahassee, Florida.

Florida A&M University students on a protest march - Tallahassee, Florida.

Sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter - Tallahassee, Florida.

Sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter - Tallahassee, Florida.

Sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter - Tallahassee, Florida.

Sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter - Tallahassee, Florida.

Copy of Telegram from Martin Luther King Jr. to C. K. Steele, March 19, 1960

Copy of Telegram from Martin Luther King Jr. to C. K. Steele, March 19, 1960

Letter from James R. Robinson to Lottie Houston and Marion Hamilton, April 3, 1960

Letter from James R. Robinson to Lottie Houston and Marion Hamilton, April 3, 1960

Letter from Monroe S. Wasch to Priscilla Stephens, April 16, 1960

Letter from Monroe S. Wasch to Priscilla Stephens, April 16, 1960

Sit-in defendants - Tallahassee, Florida.

Sit-in defendants - Tallahassee, Florida.

Activists Patricia and Priscilla Stephens with their mother Lottie in Philadelphia.

Activists Patricia and Priscilla Stephens with their mother Lottie in Philadelphia.

Sit Ins: The Students Report, May 1960

Sit Ins: The Students Report, May 1960

Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt, May 31, 1960

Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt, May 31, 1960

Nonviolence in Theory and in Action, CORE, Miami, 1960

Nonviolence in Theory and in Action, CORE, Miami, 1960

Boycott and picketing of downtown stores - Tallahassee, Florida.

Boycott and picketing of downtown stores - Tallahassee, Florida.

Boycott and picketing of downtown stores - Tallahassee, Florida.

Boycott and picketing of downtown stores - Tallahassee, Florida.

Benjamin Cowins during a sit-in at McCrory's lunch counter in Tallahassee.

Benjamin Cowins during a sit-in at McCrory's lunch counter in Tallahassee.

Priscilla Stephens (later Kruize), from CORE, being arrested at the Tallahassee Regional Airport.

Priscilla Stephens (later Kruize), from CORE, being arrested at the Tallahassee Regional Airport.

Priscilla Stephens (later Kruize), from CORE, and Reverend Petty D. McKinney, from Nyack, N.Y., in the back of a Tallahassee police car.

Priscilla Stephens (later Kruize), from CORE, and Reverend Petty D. McKinney, from Nyack, N.Y., in the back of a Tallahassee police car.

Excerpt of Leon County Jail Register for June 12-17, 1961

Excerpt of Leon County Jail Register for June 12-17, 1961

Picketing at the State Theatre in Tallahassee.

Picketing at the State Theatre in Tallahassee.

African American students in Tallahassee circuit courtroom.

African American students in Tallahassee circuit courtroom.

Patricia Stephens Due being arrested after defying restraining order with others at the State Theatre in Tallahassee.

Patricia Stephens Due being arrested after defying restraining order with others at the State Theatre in Tallahassee.

The Core of the Matter Newsletter, Tallahassee, July 1963

The Core of the Matter Newsletter, Tallahassee, July 1963

FAMU and Civil Rights, Miami, 1963

FAMU and Civil Rights, Miami, 1963

  • Research Starter
  • Teacher's Guide

Learning Unit

  • The Civil Rights Movement in Florida

Floridiana Article

  • Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Documents

  • News from the Southern Conference Educational Fund, October 6, 1960
  • Photographs
  • Selected Documents

Collections

  • Stephens Sisters Jail-In Papers, 1960

Published Secondary Sources

Catsam, Derek Charles. Freedom’s Main Line: The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009.

Due, Tananarive, and Patricia Stephens Due. Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis. Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History 1513-2008. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

Meier, August, and Elliott Rudwick. CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement 1942-1968. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Mohl, Raymond A. South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945-1960. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.

Rabby, Glenda. The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.

Guiding Questions

  • What was the role of Florida in the civil rights movement?
  • What were the nonviolent tactics used by activists during the civil rights movement?

Next Generation Sunshine State Standards

SS.4.A.1.1: Analyze primary and secondary resources to identify significant individuals and events throughout Florida history.

SS.4.A.8.1: Identify Florida's role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Examples may include, but are not limited to, Tallahassee Bus Boycotts, civil disobedience, and the legacy of early civil rights pioneers, Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore.

SS.912.A.7.5: Compare nonviolent and violent approaches utilized by groups (African Americans, women, Native Americans, Hispanics) to achieve civil rights.

SS.912.A.7.7: Assess the building of coalitions between African Americans, whites, and other groups in achieving integration and equal rights.

SS.912.A.7.17: Examine key events and key people in Florida history as they relate to United States history.

Document Analysis Worksheets from the National Archives

Document analysis is the first step in working with primary sources. Teach your students to think through primary source documents for contextual understanding and to extract information to make informed judgments. The document analysis worksheets created by the National Archives and Records Administration are in the public domain.

State Seal of Florida
Division of Library and Information Services logo

Florida Memory is a digital outreach program providing free online access to select archival records from collections housed in the State Library and Archives of Florida. Florida Memory digitizes materials that illuminate the state's history and culture.

  • Florida Department of State
  • Division of Library & Information Services
  • State Archives of Florida
  • Additional Links

    About Us Connect With Us Disclaimer Harmful Content Statement State Archives Online Catalog State Library Online Catalog Ask A Librarian Accessibility Statement

    Follow Us

    Florida Memory is funded under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Florida's LSTA program is administered by the Department of State's Division of Library and Information Services.

    For FY2024-25, the percentage of total costs for the Florida Memory program financed with federal money is 66%; the federal dollar amount to be spent on the program is $614,955. This program does not receive any non-governmental funding.

    IMLS