page_title: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
section_title: 1964 Democratic National Convention
hierarchical_section_title: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party / 1964 Democratic National Convention
caption_attribution_description: English: Aaron Henry, chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation, reading from a document while seated before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey
context_page_description: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, also referred to as the Freedom Democratic Party, was an American political party created in 1964 as a branch of the populist Freedom Democratic organization in the state of Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. It was organized by African Americans and whites from Mississippi to challenge the established power of the Mississippi Democratic Party, which at the time allowed participation only by whites, when African-Americans made up 40% of the state population.
context_section_description: The MFDP sent its elected delegates by bus to the convention. They challenged the right of the Mississippi Democratic Party's delegation to participate in the convention, claiming that the regulars had been illegally elected in a completely segregated process that violated both party regulations and federal law, and that the regulars had no intention of supporting Lyndon B. Johnson, the party's presidential candidate, in the November election. They asked that the MFDP delegates be seated rather than the segregationist regulars.
  Some of the original members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation in 1964 were Lawrence Guyot, Peggy J. Conner, Victoria Gray, Edwin King, Aaron Henry, Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, and Bob Moses.
  Dr. Martin Luther King told President Johnson that he would "do everything in my power to urge (The MFDP) being seated as the only democratically constituted delegation from Mississippi." King also voiced his support to Congress, "I pledge myself and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the fullest support of the challenges of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party and call upon all Americans to join with me in this commitment."
  The Democratic Party referred the challenge to the convention credentials committee. The MFDP delegates lobbied and argued their case, and large groups of supporters and volunteers established an around-the-clock picket line on the boardwalk just outside the convention. The MFDP prepared a legal brief detailing the reasons why the "regular" Mississippi delegation did not adequately represent their state's residents, including the tactics employed to exclude participation by Black citizens. Jack Minnis wrote, "MFDP, with the help of SNCC, produced brochures, mimeographed biographies of the MFDP delegates, histories of the MFDP, legal arguments, historical arguments, moral arguments" that were distributed to all of the Convention's delegates. Their actions attracted considerable publicity.
  The credentials committee televised its proceedings, which allowed the nation to see and hear the testimony of the MFDP delegates, particularly the testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer. She gave a moving and evocative portrayal of her hard brutalized life as a sharecropper on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta and the retaliation inflicted on her for trying to register to vote.
  After that, most knowledgeable observers thought the majority of the delegates were ready to unseat the regulars and seat the MFDP delegates in their place. But some of the all-white delegations from other southern states threatened to leave the convention and bolt the party (as they had done in previous years) if the regular Mississippi delegation was unseated. President Johnson had wanted a convention stressing unity and feared losing Southern support in the coming campaign against Republican Party candidate Barry Goldwater. To ensure his victory in November, Johnson maneuvered to prevent the MFDP from replacing the regulars. After a frantic scramble, he ordered the chairman of the credentials committee to avoid deciding the matter or sending the issue to the convention.
  With the help of Senator Hubert Humphrey (a potential candidate for vice president) and Party leader Walter Mondale, Johnson engineered a "compromise" in which the national Democratic Party offered the MFDP two at-large seats, rather than replacing the regular Democratic delegates from their state. This allowed them to watch the floor proceedings but not take part. The MFDP refused this "compromise," which permitted the white-only regulars, who had not been democratically elected, to keep their seats and denied votes to the MFDP.
  MFDP leader and Mississippi NAACP President Aaron Henry stated:
  Now, Lyndon made the typical white man's mistake: Not only did he say, 'You've got two votes,' which was too little, but he told us to whom the two votes would go. He'd give me one and Ed King one; that would satisfy. But, you see, he didn't realize that sixty-four of us came up from Mississippi on a Greyhound bus, eating cheese a
caption: Aaron Henry reading from a document while seated before the credentials committee
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