Student Activism and Civil Rights in Mississippi: Protest Politics and the Struggle for Racial Justice, 1960-1965

9. The Political Organization of Protest Politics, Part I

134 9 The Political Organization of Protest Politics, Part I Midway I’ve come this far to freedom And I won’t turn back. . . . You’ve slashed me and you’ve treed me And you’ve everything but freed me, But in time you’ll know you need me And it won’t be long. —from “midway,” by naomi madget Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added. —president kwame nkrumah of ghana There’s no question about it that the formation of the Freedom Democratic Party and the [Convention] Challenge at Atlantic City was a type of confrontation, as well as the Congressional Challenge. —james forman, winter 1965 T he other programs created within the framework of the Summer Project of 1964 were those which focused on the creation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in early 1964, as well as such offshoots as the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU) in January 1965 and the Poor People’s Corporation (PPC) in August 1965. Both the political programs of the MFDP from 1964 on and the economic programs of the MFLU and the PPC in 1965 and after were aimed at organizing Mississippi African Americans for action within and outside the closed society, and all three were forms of parallel protest organizations established to challenge the white the political organization of protest politics, part i 135 power structure. In reality, the latter two were the natural extension of the former, which attempted to gain a national audience for Mississippi African Americans who had been unable to break down the white power structure from within. The movement’s inability to create a voice for local African Americans within the existing structure of Mississippi politics drove it into the realm of radical protest, or parallel, politics and then on to a presentation of Mississippi African Americans’ case at the Democratic National Convention in August 1964 and in the U.S. Congress in 1965. In both cases a surprising amount of support for ameliorating the Mississippi African American’s plight was achieved. Alongside this support came the downfall of radical protest politics within the State of Mississippi , the withdrawal of SNCC and CORE from the local scene, and the gradual weakening of the MFDP, which temporarily continued to maintain an extreme posture within the state but gradually moved toward politics that required compromise and participation in support of the national Democratic Party. Moreover, with the withdrawal of SNCC and CORE activists from the state in 1964 and 1965, local MFDP members gradually moved away from the radical stances of SNCC and CORE and began to adopt positions closer to those of liberal and labor groups as well as the whites in Mississippi who were willing to work with them toward future goals of political participation in Democratic politics. This, moreover, was after local and national elements of the NAACP and SCLC, as well as liberal elements in the Democratic National Party, had moved on to more conventional forms of political activity in Mississippi. During this period the Mississippi power structure escalated the violent war against the movement until it reached its most extreme form of confrontation —in McComb. Thereafter, White Mississippi began to gradually adjust itself to twentieth-century America. This though was only after vigorous pressure had been mounted against it by the federal government and the Democratic National Party, as well as on a local level by the economic realities within the state. By the middle of 1965 it was readily apparent that White Mississippi had begun to move in new and different ways to minimize the African American’s participation in the closed society, while at the same time trying to reduce the outside pressures exerted upon the state by national political and governmental elements. Thus the white power structure sought to accommodate the nation’s demands and at the same time ensure that African Americans would not be able to frustrate white supremacy in Mississippi in the future. 136 student activism and civil rights in mississippi The Birth of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party The origins of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party lie within the evolving structure of the civil rights movement within the state and the civil rights workers ’ constant efforts to draw African Americans into the political process there. The movement was encouraged by Reverend R. L. T. Smith’s and Reverend Merrill W. Lindsey’s...