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VI. The Freedom Summer of 1964

If anything, Mississippi officials definitely did not change its mind over the civil rights movement. As fiercely as ever, a broad coalition of state’s senators, governors and newsmen denounced the plan as an invasion from the outside, designed to disrupt what they identified as “our way of life.” The name-calling varied greatly, ranging from “intruders” and “left-wing agitators” to “unwashed beatniks” to “flea-bitten crowd of white screwballs”, “CORE creeps” etc.⁴⁶ (Rachal: 316) The “Summer Project” was officially announced by James Farmer of CORE, James Forman of SNCC and Bob Moses (representing SNCC and other groups joined in COFO) on February 29, 1964.

The state of Mississippi took numerous measures to obstruct civil rights activities to the highest possible degree. In the spring, series of legislative bills outlawed picketing, distribution of leaflets and protesting nearby public buildings – in June a “criminal syndicalism” law was passed, prohibiting political organizing of groups that were considered subversive. The legislature also made it unlawful to run a school without a license from the county, trying to prevent the establishment of the planned Freedom Schools. In Congress, the Southerners led by Senator Stennis filibustered the civil rights bill. (Rachal: 320)

Freedom Day in Hattiesburg

Meanwhile in Hattiesburg, MS, SNCC held a Freedom Day (January 22). The voter registration had been going on there for two years. Ella Baker and John Lewis arrived from Atlanta to help with careful preparations for the event. Some people (led by Moses) would go picketing, ready to go to jail and other groups (led by Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer) would run the voter registration campaign. The Committee received massive support from the National Council of Churches – a delegation of 50 ministers formed a picket line in front of the Forrest County courthouse. And for the first time, there was no white mob. No mass arrests during all day. Two picket lines continued undisturbed. That was something that had never happened before in Mississippi. The Hattiesburg staff was one to be proud of in SNCC: over the course of time, a strong native leadership had developed and from its midst, a group of three announced their candidature for the U.S. Congress in 1964.⁴⁷ (Zinn: 102-122)

Expectedly, the white supremacist extremists responded with violence. Only one day after the first wave of volunteers arrived in Mississippi on June 20, three staffers were reported missing. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were on their way to the town of Lawndale to investigate a church burning when they were stopped by a deputy sheriff and taken into custody (supposedly for speeding). They were released that night and what exactly happened then is not known. But as they failed to phone the headquarters (every worker was required to report regularly), the Jackson office notified the police, FBI and Justice Department. The media immediately focused on the event and President Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s successor⁴⁸, sent 200 sailors to help the FBI in searching for the missing workers. (Williams: 230-231)

The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, along with some state officials, were quick to denounce the disappearance as a “Communist hoax.” Indeed, together with the notorious Citizens Councils and the state-funded Sovereignty Commission, they joined forces in an attempt at invoking a statewide anti-Communist paranoia. “Race-baiting” and “red-baiting” were interchangeable in their rhetoric. But because of the public attention they were now getting, statesmen abandoned race issues and focused on the Red Scare. They were so self-assured that they required no proof of the alleged Communist infiltration in the civil rights movement, and that was particularly true when it came to SNCC or CORE. By late July, a state legislative committee was investigating suspected communist influence in the movement. Unlike the NAACP, youngsters in SNCC certainly did not take any strong-minded stance in regard to Communism; nevertheless, their internal documents display no sympathy for it, let alone a conspiracy. Similarly, extensive FBI investigations disclosed no Communist infiltration in SNCC or in the movement as a whole. (Rachal: 317-320)

During the summer, activists were many times charged with absurd offences and when there was no charge, they were often jailed “for investigation” or “on suspicion.” Altogether, COFO estimated about a thousand arrests. Most of them were traffic violations. There was a prevailing tendency to arrest the victim not the persons responsible, especially as regards beatings. White volunteers were treated with extraordinary brutality, for they were perceived as traitors of the race. Occurrence of violence was not rare, quite the opposite: statistics claim 35 shooting accidents, at least six men murdered, 30 buildings bombed and at least 32 churches burned. Not a single arsonist was ever convicted of a church burning in spite of the fact – or perhaps due to the fact – that these attacks bore particular significance: for the poor blacks, spirituality was an important refuge and the role of the church was central in the life of a community.⁴⁹ The independent black churches became the symbols of the movement. For the Ku Klux Klan, however, the religion was not about justice – instead, through religious fanaticism, it sought to preserve the status quo – white domination. (Rachal: 322-325)

On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the long-awaited Civil Rights Act into law. Although it somehow articulated what needed to be done in respect to racial discrimination, its impact on the actual conditions of Mississippi blacks was little. The law itself could not guarantee a change if not backed by resolute executive action.⁵⁰ In fact, to many of the field workers it only proved that the federal government was indeed not willing to assume the responsibility to act vigorously in African Americans’ defense. (Zinn)

By that time, a thousand volunteers were out in Mississippi, canvassing to win voters for the new Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

As one of the major objectives of the Summer Project, the Freedom Democratic Party (FDP, also MFDP) was established in the early spring of 1964 with the intention to challenge the hegemony of the state’s regular Democratic Party, which did not accept blacks.

Since after the Freedom Vote, SNCC had kept asking Democrats in other states to prop the new party if they questioned the legitimacy of the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in August. First, they received a sympathetic resolution from the liberal California Democratic Council and soon after, Democrats in Michigan and New York gave their backing to the recognition of the integrated FDP. Bob Moses managed to convince John Rauh to work with the party. Rauh was an influential figure: head of the D.C. Democratic Party and vice president of the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). He promised that he would ensure that the Freedom Party delegates would be seated. In April, SNCC also opened a party office in Washington. (Williams)

In June, the ADA released a call for rejection of the racist lily-white Mississippi delegation. President Johnson hoped for his nomination to be a smooth routine and, fearing a loss of support of the Southerners, he still backed the regular party and made behind-the-curtain treaties with them. By the end of the month, Mississippi Democrats further alienated themselves from the national platform by explicitly refusing the civil rights agenda. (Williams)

On August 4, the FBI (after it received a tip from an informant) discovered the bodies of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. They were buried in an earthen dam a few miles from where they disappeared.⁵¹ In response, most former hoax theorists remained silent and some of the traditionally reactionary newspapers (like the Hattiesburg American) even called the murders “inexcusable and without purpose.” Yet on August 6, the MFDP organized its state convention in Jackson, attended by 2,500. They had selected a delegation of 64 blacks and 4 whites for the upcoming clash.⁵² (Williams: 234-235)

The aim was to be seated at the convention and have the white Mississippi delegation kicked out. To be able to request such action, they had to convince the convention’s Credentials Committee. In order to get a fair hearing at the convention, John Rauh came up with a strategy that was, as he claimed, “pretty hard to beat.” The MFDP would have to persuade eight state delegations to demand a “roll-call” vote. A simple voice vote was sure to be subject to covert pressures by the president’s clique. In the meantime, a Mississippi court outlawed the Freedom Party (as a threat to the public) and the state government called it a Communist organization. (Williams: 241)

Rauh, party’s counsel, was very helpful with the preparations. The testimony in front of the Credentials Committee was to present the voter discrimination against blacks in the Magnolia State in all its hideousness. The convention began on August 22 in Atlantic City, New Jersey (NJ). The most eloquent speaker was Fannie Lou Hamer.⁵³ President Johnson vainly tried to deflect the media from covering the testimonies. The situation called for a compromise. This came in a proposal by a credentials subcommittee: if the Mississippi Democrats swore loyalty to the ticket, they would be seated, but – so would two MFDP leading delegates, Aaron Henry and Ed King. These two would be delegates “at-large” – though they could vote, they would not officially represent Mississippi. (Williams)
“I want the true democracy that’ll raise America up”⁵⁴

The proposal was angrily turned down on both sides of the barricade. The MFDP wanted nothing short of seating for all its representatives. All but three of the regulars eventually withdrew from the convention, for they couldn’t stand their party negotiating with blacks. Rauh called for more time to consolidate FDP’s stance but Johnson pushed hard for an immediate voice vote, and he won: the convention accepted the compromise. Bob Moses learnt about it from TV and went crazy. “I’ll have nothing to do with the political system any longer,” he exclaimed before cameras. For him and many others in SNCC, the concessions offered were totally unacceptable and only proved the general racism and pretense of the Democratic Party. First of all, the principle that segregationist delegates were intolerable was not established. Second, the FDP’s right to represent Mississippi was not recognized since the two delegates were designated at-large and more, the two were selected by the convention, not the FDP. The NAACP and the SCLC recommended SNCC to agree to the compromise, but for SNCC, concessions in practice were nothing without concessions in principle. For SNCC, the way the Democratic Party operated was appalling. For them, “compromise” was a cuss word and the very idea of backstage deals repulsive. They saw themselves as the force of justice fighting against the evil. They were impatient and frustrated with the slow pace of change within the Party. (Stoper: 20-21; Williams: 243)

Nevertheless, Fannie Lou Hamer and John Rauh didn’t quit. Several times, she led the whole MFDP group, with passes borrowed from supportive delegates, onto the convention floor and they took the seats reserved for the regulars. The rest of the convention had been taken over by the fight of the two Mississippi camps. Still, it marked a turning point and there was a victory to claim, after all – even though not exactly the kind that SNCC wished for. A promise was made that at future conventions, states which practiced racial discrimination in the selection of their delegates would be denied seating.⁵⁵ It was a victory that many liberals, black and white, eagerly applauded, along with the Negro establishment like the NAACP and SCLC. (Williams)

In sum, the Summer Project marked a profound change in the state of affairs. The civil rights movement really “cracked” the closed society of Mississippi (as John Lewis had put it). The violence by the extremists did not stop, but some change of attitude among the white public began to float up. By the end of August, 80,000 blacks had joined the MFDP. Approximately 1,600 black Mississippians registered to vote and some 17,000 attempted to do so. A lot of projects initiated during the Freedom Summer continued: the Johnson administration funded schools and medical centers in rural parts of the country. Federal money for nutrition and legal aid programs carried on the efforts commenced by the project staff. (Rachal: 332; Williams: 248-249)