While at Bluffton College, he was mentored by Dr. Lawrence Templin, a noted pacifist who had been imprisoned for his beliefs and was now a professor of English literature. Templin had grown up in India as the son of Christian missionaries who knew Mahatma Gandhi personally. Templin's teachings deeply influence Velásquez's approach to securing social justice for farmworkers. Templin knew Bayard Rustin while in prison, and Templin encouraged him to volunteer with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)—a civil rights organization in which Rustin played a major role. Baldemar Velásquez spent several weeks in the summer of 1968 working with CORE and living with an African American family in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduation, he spent time picking cherries in Michigan to pay off his student loans, and went to Wisconsin to meet with the founder of Obreros Unidos, Jesus Salas (also known as "Jesse Salas").