We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi

Thirteen. Birth of a Party

102 t h i r t e e n Birth of a Party the struggle to politically empower the Mississippi Negro was begun in countless lonely battles over the many years since the Emancipation Proclamation. But it would not be until 1964 that the battle would be joined on a national stage and carried “live” into the living rooms of America and across the world. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a new energy surged through the black community. Mississippi Negroes, now guaranteed access to public accommodations, felt emboldened to try new stratagems for gaining the vote and finding a political voice. But in a state that was essentially a citadel of one party, the Democrats, Negroes remained blocked from any meaningful participation in its deliberations. The platform of the Mississippi Democratic Party in 1960 stated defiantly: “We believe in the segregation of the races and are unalterably opposed to the repeal or modification of the Segregation laws in this state.” Those few Negroes who made their way into the Democratic Party found themselves utterly powerless to advance the cause of equal rights. The long frustration created by the blatant racism was the long, slow fuse that finally burst into flame in April 1964. Hundreds of disenfranchised blacks and a handful of courageous whites created their own organizing tool for building political change. It was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The MFDP became the mechanism through which the historically powerless could learn about the political system, and observe how their decision making could affect their lives. When the MFDP worked with the civil rights workers that summer, they enrolled 55,000 blacks and a handful of whites on their rolls. It provided striking evidence to refute white establishment charges that Negroes didn’t care about voting. Birth of a Party   |   103 In July and early August, the MFDP held precinct meetings in twenty -six counties, followed by county conventions in thirty-five counties where 282 delegates were chosen to go to a state convention. The state convention chose a challenging delegation of men and women that was racially integrated, and was pledged to support the progressive platform of the national Democratic Party. Among the 68 delegates who were chosen to go to the National Democratic Convention in August were Fannie Lou Hamer, Lawrence Guyot, and Charles McLaurin, all civil rights veterans. Four of the delegates were white, including Rev. Ed King, the Tougaloo chaplain. While working to register black voters with Medgar Evers in Jackson in 1963, King had been forced off the highway by racists , and had been badly scarred in the accident. A native Mississippian, born in Vicksburg, his was a lonely but insistent voice in the MFDP convention challenge to the seating of the all-white Mississippi “regular” delegation. “There are not many white people openly working this way in Mississippi ,” he told the credentials committee of the Democratic Party at Atlantic City. “We have four white delegates in our freedom delegation here. There are more who would like to have supported us but could not do so for fear of their very lives.” When Governor Lawrence, the chairman of the credentials committee , appeared skeptical, King straightened in his chair and said with barely concealed emotion, “I know many Mississippians in the last several years, more than 100 ministers and college teachers, who have been forced to leave the state. This nation is being populated with refugees from the closed society in Mississippi.” When challenged that the MFDP delegates were not really representative of the whole state, King replied with anger that it was fear of white violence that had limited the delegation. “We were not able to hold a county convention in Neshoba County or a precinct meeting in Philadelphia because the church we wanted to meet in was burned to the ground.” His voice faltered, and then rose in the hushed meeting room. “Three of our workers were murdered in Philadelphia.” His gaze was steady as he confronted Governor Lawrence. “We do not apologize to you for not being able to hold a county convention in Neshoba County, Mississippi.” 104   |   The Long, Hot Summer, 1964 King’s testimony underscored a political truth that could no longer be ignored by the political delegations from every corner of the country. In a state with 435,000 Negroes of voting age, there was not a single Negro delegate, and not a delegate among the...