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James Leonard Farmer, 41, helped found the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago 19 years ago; four months ago he was elected CORE's national director. Son of a college professor and grandson of a slave, hefty (6 ft., 210 Ibs.) James Farmer studied medicine at Texas' Wiley College just long enough to realize that he could not stand the sight of blood, decided to become a minister, took his divinity degree at Howard University, but was never ordained. Instead, he went to work for such "social-action causes" as Fellowship of Reconciliation and the N.A.A.C.P. He studied the life of Gandhi, began applying the techniques of nonviolent protest to the situation of U.S.mNegroes. Farmer planned and directed the first busload of Freedom Riders. Married to a white girl, he idealistically aims for more than an end to legal barriers against Negroes: "We want a society of friends."