And Gently He Shall Lead Them: Robert Parris Moses and Civil Rights in Mississippi

8. "To Bring Morality into Our Politics"

EIGHT "TO BRING MORALITY INTO OUR POLITICS" T he initial phase of the Freedom Summer-voter registration drives, Freedom Schools, and the like-had failed to bring Washington to the Mississippi battle lines. SNCC workers hoped that the next phase, the attempt to seat Mississippi Freedom Democratic party delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, would at last empower the state's black citizens. The MFDP was first rebuffed by the regular Mississippi Democratic Party. Whites would simply cancel the local caucuses where the MFDP was expected to intrude, or move their location. On June 19 from Oxford, Ohio, on June 19 Moses issued a COFO press release announcing that a federal complaint had been 169 170 't TO BRING MORALITY INTO OUR POLITICS" filed in Greenville, Mississippi, challenging the election procedures for Mississippi delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The charge cited violation of the Constitution through the systematic disenfranchisement of black voters. The suit asked for a judicial panel to review present procedures and referred to an earlier suit filed on June 2 in Jackson that successfully squelched a poll tax statute that violated the Twentyfourth Amendment.! The MFDP then held its own state convention on August 6 in a black Masonic Temple in Jackson to select its delegates while COFO worked on building a coalition to support the new party's aims among out-of-state liberals. The Mississippi Free Press printed a special report just before the state convention on the origins and agenda of the MFDP and reproduced a "Freedom Registration FOrlTI," which contrasted in its simplicity to the voter registration questionnaire encountered by blacks throughout the state.2 Joe Rauh, legal counsel for the party, gave a workshop to the MFDP executive committee on procedures to be followed later that month at the convention.3 Spirits were high, and many MFDP delegates trusted that their appeals to the outside world would be answered .4 They further assumed that their support for Johnson's programs, while the regular Mississippi delegation was openly for Goldwater, would strengthen their position at Atlantic City.5 And initial support for their cause did come from diverse liberal organizations. Twenty-five members of Congress had by August expressed support for the challenge along with nine state delegations that passed resolutions endorsing the insur- II TO BRING MORALITY INTO OUR POLITICS" 171 gent party before the Democratic National Convention .6 But it was also clear by that time that President Lyndon Johnson had made up his mind not to seat the MFDP.7 Johnson would not permit the MFDP's challenge to alienate white voters anywhere. The white Mississippi delegation, angered by the passage of the Civil Rights Act on July 2 that banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting, was threatening a walk-out on this issue alone. Johnson so badly wanted no one to disturb his placid pool of support that he had the FBI wire MFDP activists' rooms as well as the Atlantic City hotel room of Martin Luther King.8 The Mississippi delegation, joined by other Southerners, had walked out in 1948 over a civil rights plank, and he was determined that it would not happen again if he could help it. As early as June a national committee counsel, Harold Leventhal, sent out a series of letters to various leaders, including the chairs of the credentials committee and the party, which suggested ways to prevent any unpleasantness the MFDP challenge might stir up. An early August strategy session by Johnson campaign advisers considered how to avoid a floor fight over the issue.9 On August 12 the president assured the governor of Mississippi that the MFDP would not be seated.tO On August 19, just five days before the Democratic Convention, the president arranged a meeting with black leaders; King was persuaded by his advisor Bayard Rustin not to go. Rustin had been the subject of a bitter debate in late July over the way SCLC support would be handled for the MFDP at the Democratic Con- 172 II TO BRING MORALITY INTO OUR POLITICS" vention. Asked to coordinate a mass demonstration outside the convention hall, Rustin agreed only on the condition that he be in charge of handling all activity connected with garnering MFDP support from individual delegates and state delegations-something Ella Baker in Washington had been working on for some months.11 Now Rustin was continuing to try to...