The Freedom Summer: The Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party

In a nation where literacy tests used to determine voter eligibility were ran by “registrars who could not read or write”, a statement made by a Civil Rights activist in the film Mississippi is this America?, unfair racial practices were running rampant, especially in the South. The year was 1964, and while many positive changes had occurred in the nation thanks to the work of Civil Rights workers, such as integrated interstate travel and integrated schools, much work still had to be done to ensure equality for all races in the United States. Through the exploration of the Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party (which emerged from the Freedom Summer), and the actions that occurred in Selma, Alabama in the name of voting rights

and equality in the 1960s, we will see how voting rights became a priority within the Civil Rights movement, what activists did to achieve them, and how President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ or Johnson) would be inspired to aid in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Direct action, nonviolent protests and demonstrations were an effective tool of the Civil Rights activists and volunteers. Activists would use mass media to draw attention to the violent actions of the South, and fill up the jails of the South (usually after a beating or mistreating caught on camera), to gain whatever concession or goal they were looking for in an area. While this was an effective way to work for the movement, many activists realized these actions were really only a band-aid to the problem. The real issue was that African Americans had little (really almost non-existent) political power in the South, and therefore could not vote for politicians or legislation that had their best interest in heart. This was due to a fear that ran rampant across the Southern elite, who felt that if blacks (who consisted of a majority of the population in some districts in the South) could vote, then they would only vote for black politicians, and the whites would lose all political, and by effect social, power in the South. Civil Rights activists decided to shift their focus from primarily direct action tactics to gaining voting rights for all African Americans, so that they could put the real power in the hands of the people, rather than hoping those currently in power would do something to change the current status quo. One way they would garner those voting rights is the Freedom Summer of 1964.
The Freedom Summer was a project led by Bob Moses and the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). It would consists of mostly white college-aged student volunteers, trained and working with black SNCC activists, going down to Mississippi, a state so racist that is was believed by a Civil Rights activist in the film Freedom Summer, that if activists could “crack Mississippi…(they could) crack the whole South,” and lead a voter registration campaign. According to Clayborne Carson in his text “Mississippi Challenge”, volunteers had to be “psychologically screened” in order to ensure that they could mentally handle the challenges that, as privileged college students, they have never faced (101). Activists would teach literacy and other subjects in what were called “Freedom Schools”, and they would also go door-to-door across Mississippi and persuade African Americans to go down to the registrar and register to vote. Many African Americans of Mississippi were scared to do so because, according to the Freedom Summer film, if you attempted to register to vote, your name could appear in the local paper, and your employer (who was most likely white) could see that. Many African Americans feared this blacklisting tactic, but quite a few still attempted to register. They would face impossible literacy tests, and registrars who were suddenly not open, or working erratic hours. These actions inspired the Freedom Summer activists to go a step further, and create their own political party, the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party.
African Americans of the South did not feel at home with the Democratic Party that in the past had supposedly supported them.

Because of this, and the frustrations arising from the Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party (MDFP) was created. In addition to trying to get African American Mississippians to register to vote, the volunteers of the Freedom Summer added the new task of inspiring these people to join their new political party. The goal of this new political party was to give a voice to those who were oppressed and politically voiceless in the Mississippi. According to the film, Mississippi is this America?, 60,000 people joined the MDFP. The National Democratic Convention was going to occur in July 1964, and the MDFP was determined to have representation there. Led by Fannie Lou Hamer, representatives from the MDFP rode the bus to New Jersey to the convention, and came prepared with the necessary paperwork to appeal to the Credentials Committee. Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at the convention, drawing national attention; President Johnson intervened by cutting off her coverage. Unfortunately, this would not work out well for Johnson because as explained in the film, Freedom Summer, Hamer’s message would be replayed multiple times for those who had missed it due to the President’s intervention. The presence of the MDFP would bother not only the regular Mississippi Democrats, but other Southern Democrats as well. Fearing exposure of party-division Johnson

would offer the MDFP, two seats at the convention, that they would ultimately turn down. In Mississippi is this America?, it explained how the MDFP would not take the compromise, but would gladly sit in the seats vacated by the regular Mississippi Democrats. In the end, the MDFP did not get the representation that they wanted at the convention, but they did draw national attention to the lack of political equality in Mississippi, and across the South, adding fuel to the fire of voting rights for all. This fire would spread to Selma, Alabama where the ultimate showdown in the fight for voting rights would go down.
Alabama was arguably one of the most racist states in the United States during the Civil Rights Era. Martin Luther King decided to use his SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council) to lead a march from Selma, AL to Montgomery, AL, using direct action tactics to fight for voting rights. This would be no simple task; in fact, it took several marches to make this mission succeed. Alabama was filled with people who were tired of, as journalist Pat Watters stated in Adam Fairclough’s text “Selma”, “ugly, cop-baiting demonstrations” (248). One attempt to march led to what would be known as “Bloody Sunday.” When activists attempted to march out of Selma, they were greeted by cops who attacked them and pushed them back into city limits. According to an activist in the Eyes on the Prize film “Bridge to Freedom”, the “tear gas was so thick (that they) could not get help to people.” Bloody Sunday drew media attention nation-wide, and Alabama could not take the backlash that came from such negative attention. The march to Montgomery would gain a court-sanction, and President Johnson, in an attempt to calm the uproar would promise voting rights legislation.
From the man who cut off the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, to the man who would come to heartedly support the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Johnson made a huge support shift during his presidency.

He went from fearing the loss of the Southern Democrats, to being so inspired by the actions of the Civil Rights activists, particularly those in Selma (and probably publically pressured) to outwardly supporting the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. According to a speech he gave prior to presentation of the bill to congress, he described the bill as “a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote” (350). He appealed to the nation with statements about equality, and how the right to vote falls under “human rights” rather than “states rights or national rights” (351). Political equality for African Americans would finally be in

reach.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did pass, and eliminated literacy tests, and other “restrictions used to deny Negroes the right to vote” (Johnson, 351). The work of the activists: the door-to-door marketing, the speeches, and marches, in the Freedom Summer, the MDFP, and in Selma, AL was not in vain. They would gain the political power to fight against the unjust laws of the South that had kept them oppressed for so long, and they gained the opportunity to put people in power that would speak and act in the best interest of all people, rather than just one race. They would inspire a nation, and a president, to fight and pass a bill that would ensure those rights forever.