While at Syracuse he helped form a local chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and actively fought housing segregation in the school dorms and surrounding community. In 1963, just before taking his oral exams for his PhD, he dropped out and went to work for CORE In Louisiana. Michael stayed with CORE for four years, eventually becoming the Mid-West Regional Field Secretary. He was jailed 11 times, the last time for three weeks under a charge of criminal anarchy, a capital offense. He left CORE when the white staff were asked to leave and moved to San Francisco during the summer of love.