Word: mfdp
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Dates: during 1964-1964
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This is the first time the MFDP has appealed its case outside Mississippi. Now Rauh brings the challenge before a nation-wide television audience. He relies primarily on Henry and Mrs. Fanny Lou Hamer's tales of persecution to show that the MFDP is the "loyal, legal, and long-suffering party from Mississippi." To charges that the Party has no legal basis, Rauh replies: "The Negro has been kept out of the Mississippi Democratic Party by terror. I want the nation to know this terror...
That night Wilkins, King, Rauh, Moses, and Henry meet with sympathetic members of the Credentials Committee in the delegates' lounge behind the ballroom. After the highly emotional afternoon session, many Committee members are demanding that the traditional party be thrown out and the MFDP seated. Rauh argues that this is politically unsound. But he accepts a proposal by Rep. Edith Green of Oregon that the minority report specify that a loyalty oath be administered to both delegations...
...Credentials Committee meets in the afternoon, adjourning at 6 p.m. to announce it is still deadlocked. But the MFDP's legal position is weakening, for the Credentials Committee has decided that a legal party is one which has complied with the law of the state from which it comes. Still, the Freedom delegation has attracted a hard core of supporters, who are determined to bring the issue to the floor if the administration refuses to change its position...
Moses rises from the back of the church. He states that he believes the administration will try and trap the MFDP by offering a new compromise. "They promised," continues Moses, "to abolish segregation in Mississippi politics. I asked Humphrey if that meant the federal government would aid in voter registration. 'Those are two seperate matters,' he replied...
Martin Luther King and Ella Baker, MFDP Washington staff member, clash violently over the issue. The delegation must accept the compromise, says King, to lessen "the long suffering and deep-seated frustration of the Negro people." "We must reject it," says Miss Baker, "to condemn the massive political pressure exerted by the administration...