By the end of July, the Negro movement was stalled. Overwhelming compliance with the Civil Rights Law had seemed to lift a moral burden from the nation's conscience. The Goldwater Convention had stolen from the movement Morality, the American Heritage, the Constitution, and God. And liberals were busily setting aside Baldwin's essays in order to ponder George Gallup's assessment of backlash.
In late August, however, the movement reasserted itself. Emerging from Mississippi, the Freedom Democratic Party (FDP) rocked the Democratic Convention, engaged the attention of a huge television audience, and reclicted from white liberals the phrases and fervor so quickly forgotten a short month earlier.
Many histories of the FDP's convention challenge should be written. The challenge should be was simultaneously a watershed in the history of Mississippi, a crisis-point in the history of the civil rights movement, and a significant footnote to the history of the Democratic Party. However, as a white Northerner working sporadically for the FDP in Washington and Atlantic City, I could see the unfolding convention challenge only as a case study in political lobbying and public relations.
Formally created on April 26, 1964 the Party began taking shape in June, with the influx of Freedom Summer volunteers. At this stage many of the FDP's Northern friends worried at its sluggishness in building an active organization and constituency. During one June visit to Washington Aaron Henry, NAACP chief in Mississippi and eventual spokesman for the Party, became angry with the impatience of his young Northern supporters: "All you consider is politics and this party thing. We're handling a couple hundred community centers at once down there. We'll cross the political bridge if and when we come to it."
Obviously he viewed the Party as only one, fairly inconsequential, thread in the fabric of the Freedom Summer project. This perspective, shared by most FDP leaders, inevitably inculcated in the Party the crusading zeal and moral absolutism of the Summer Project, qualities well suited to a social revolution, but rather awkward at a national political convention.
By June it was clear that the Party was unable, or unwilling, to establish an orderly lobbying machinery in the North. To Negroes, Frank Smith, an articulate and rather embittered young student, and Ella Baker, a portly veteran of the Southern Negro movement, traveled from state to state for the Party all summer, speaking to Democratic caucuses and committees wherever possible. Between them they secured support pledges of varying intensity from eleven states. But hurried schedules and limited energies permitted the two only to scratch the surface.
For example, the Massachusetts party remained sympathetic, but uncommitted, to the Party right through the convention week. Certainly LBJ's hostility to the FDP contributed to the ambivalence, but simple ignorance among Massachusetts delegates also played a part. At any moment, the FDP could have mobilized Boston's many civil rights groups into a concerted lobbying organization. But word never came from Jackson, and many Massachusetts delegates didn't learn the details of the issue until convention week, when hoopla and gossip precluded careful consideration of the question.
Three Teams
In Washington D.C. the lobbying situation was equally chaotic. Congress remained in session nearly all summer, presenting District civil rights groups with an opportunity to convince, cajole, and inform hundreds of important Democrats. At one point three independent teams of lobbyists were scouring the Hill for the FDP, but lack of coordination led to duplication of effort and endless embarrassment. Without leadership from the Party, the activity was clearly futile, and eventually it disintegrated.
In July the Party ceased ignoring its Northern backers and began counseling them to remain silent and inert. Henceforth information about the Party was to come only from Jackson, and lobbyists were instructed to refer curious newsmen and delegates "to the Mississippi office." In view of the number of Northern delegates still to be won over, the directive seemed ludicrously impractical. There were however several good reasons for it.
Officially, Party leaders justified the directive by claiming concern that the press was beginning to view the FDP as a civil rights project based in New York or Washington rather than as a political movement indigenous to Mississippi. There were also three unofficial, but more substantial, reasons for the directive.
First, many Northern lobbyists had proven rather imaginative in describing the Party to delegates, at times hinting that the FDP group in Atlantic City would be 50% white. Understandably, the Party wished to squelch such rumors at their source. Second, the Goldwater nomination had impressed FDP leaders with the importance of a Democratic victory in November, and there was acute worry that overzealous lobbying might turn the "Mississippi question" into a wedge between quarelling party factions in key states like New York and California.
More important than these two, however, was a third, less noble, reason for the directive; the suspicious, paranoic, militance which propelled the Party. White allies, including Northern lobbyists, were viewed less as assets than as conspirators waiting to exploit the FDP for selfish ends. The Party seemed to prefer testing its friends to using them constructively.
In June Party leaders laid plans to train the Freedom delegation at the Highlander Folk Center in Nashville just prior to the National Convention. When several sympathetic Northern politicians disapproved, citing the Communist connotations of the Center, a Party official snapped coldly, "So you want us to yield to McCarthyism?"
The Party seemed more interested in ideological and moral purity than in political victory, and it was becoming increasingly clear that racial distrust and bureaucratic pettiness within the Party were making impossible an effective political effort on the national level.
So Joseph Rauh quietly took over. Vice-Chairman of ADA and leader of the Democratic Party in Washington, Rauh spent most of July preparing the FDP's legal case for the Credentials Committee. With the approach of August, he also assumed responsibility for gathering Northern delegate strength. It was a difficult task, since the President was actively working for the "traditional" delegation.
Rauh began his campaign for support by sprucing up the FDP's image. Seeking to eradicate the popular conception of the Party as a SNCCCORE enterprise, he requested active support from the NAACP and the National Council of Churches. Clarence Mitchell, NAACP Washington representative, is a close friend of Rauh, and by early August Mitchell had pressed the Association into action: Roy Wilkins pledged to endorse the Freedom delegation before the Platform and Credentials Committees. Bishop Spike, of the National Council of Churches Commission on Race and Religion, also agreed to lend a hand behind the scenes.
On 14 August, top religious and civil rights officials pleaded the Party's case at the White House. They secured from the four LBJ aides assigned to the "Mississippi question" a shaky promise of Administration neutrality. Johnson now realized that the FDP enjoyed fairly broad and prestigious support, that it could not be neatly swept under the rug.
Johnson Sobered
The events of 16 August further sobered the President, for that evening the California Democratic Executive Committee overwhelmingly accepted a pro-FDP resolution that was openly opposed by Governor Brown and the White House. Thus, on the eve of the convention's first week, the Party's fortunes looked far brighter than anyone would have dared predict in June.
Rauh was now on the phone 12 to 14 hours a day, cashing in on a life-time of political favors owed him in liberal circles. As a UAW legal counsel, he enjoyed excellent relations with labor and soon secured formal endorsement from all UAW and IUE members who were Democratic delegates. Even the officially non-partisan AFL-CIO lent moral support in the back room.
Sensitive to party-wide anxiety over "backlash," Rauh peddled the FDP as a liberal, not solely a civil rights, movement and dwelled on the corruption, disloyalty, and conservatism of the "traditional" delegation, playing only lightly on the discrimination issue. The FDP, argued Rauh was a viable political alternative to the "traditional" party, not just an organized protest against the bigotry of the "traditionals."
While Rauh horsetraded deftly behind closed doors, the Party's Washington office stumbled through a convention-eve public relations campaign. Foreseeing a listless convention, Party leaders had long realized that the "Mississippi question" would receive inordinate press coverage in late August. Yet, inexplicably, the Party never developed an orderly publicity drive.
By the beginning of platform hearings on August 17, news-starved reporters were bombarding the Washington FDP office for information. Each met with a reception one reporter termed "curt, cold, and nasty:" "The delegates will be here next weekend. If you want more, call Jackson."
Instead of calling Jackson, most newsmen understandably shrugged, swilled another scotch on the Democratic Party, and wandered off to interview the two "traditional" Mississippi delegates who wisely attended the platform hearings in order to snare important television time and newspaper space.
On Tuesday, because of inadequate advance notice, the Washington FDP office released Rauh's legal brief to a half-attended conference. When notified that some reporters hadn't seen the brief, the office manager snapped: "Well then let them come over and pick one up." Harried newsmen, quartered in the Sheraton Park Hotel, found it difficult to travel cross town to the office, and as a result many never read the FDP's case.
The Party's challenge strategy often appeared as confused as its public relations effort. From the beginning of the summer, the FDP had refused to discuss compromise, at one time publicly castigating Senator Paul Douglas for proposing a 50-50 seating solution. Before the convention such intransigence was essential to maintain a decent bargaining posture. However, as the Credentials Committee continued negotiating and the FDP refused to yield, many of the Party's allies became uneasy.
On Monday morning, August 24, Administration mediators offered the Party a "fraternal delegation" compromise, whereby "traditionals" who signed a loyalty oath would be seated in the Mississippi section, and the FDP would receive floor space with no voting rights. Rauh turned the offer down and began gathering votes for a minority report and a floor fight. His action alienated many wavering delegations.
After hearing of the stalemate Monday afternoon, Vermont's Governor Hoff expressed to a group of FDP lobbyists the consensus of many Northern moderates: "Don't you recognize your responsibility to the Party and the country? When you're up against a Goldwater, you sacrifice for party harmony or lose not only Mississippi but the nation, maybe the world. I'm for you morally, but if you push this to the floor I'll vote against you."
Late Monday night Roy Wilkins visited FDP spokesman Aaron Henry and urged him to back down. Henry refused and the Party lost NAACP support. Rauh and King continued to counsel firmness. The wisdom of their resolve was proven Tuesday when the Administration offered a fresh compromise, giving the Freedom Party two at-large seats on the floor. Under intense Presidential pressure, New York and California, the core of the FDP's support, agreed to the proposal. In a hurried caucus of the Freedom delegation, Rauh and King urged the Party to accept the compromise and hail it as a great victory.
No Moderate Control
But the Party had long since slipped from the control of liberal politicians and moderate civil rights leaders. On the boadwalk, the FDP's silent vigil had degenerated into a vitriolic anti-Johnson rally. Jesse Grey, New York rent striker, milled through FDP headquarters at the Gem Hotel, calling for a last-ditch show of defiance.
Indeed, with the last two days, the the Gem had become a general gathering point for discontents and militants of all hues, each long on advice and short on political experience. It was in this atmosphere of ideological chaos, but not necessarily because of it, that the caucus rebuffed Rauh and King and drew up plans to enter the Mississippi seating area illegally.
Commentators have interpreted the Party's decision in various ways. Evans and Novak have intimated that extreme leftists were controlling the Party behind the scenes. Others have blamed the Party's behavior on political naivete. All the interpretations have assumed that the caucus' unwillingness to compromise proved that the Party couldn't fathom the Great American Art of Politics. Perhaps this is a valid indictment, but it ignores the fact that the Party was trying to play not American politics, but Mississippi politics. And, as every FDP pamphlet explains, "Mississippi is like no where else on earth."
The jostling in the aisle, the blind militance of the Mississippi "seat-in," may have dismayed some Vermont politicians and the suburban television audience. But there was another, a back audience crowded around television sets in a thousand grey shacks across rural Mississippi, watching intently as close friends and neighbors stood up to white authority--and got away with it.
The whole credentials challenge was, after all, aimed at this audience, the true constituency of the Freedom Party. Admittedly the challenge degenerated into an overly emotional protest against everything and thus, in a sense, against nothing. But that is because protest is today the only realistic politics open to the Mississippi Negro
