Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

“In Mississippi, where African Americans were excluded from the process of selecting Democratic convention delegates, SNCC and other civil rights groups… founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.”

pg 204

The MFDP was a group that campaigned to select an integrated delegation for the Mississippi seats at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. The MFDP was largely formed by SNCC(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) during the Freedom Summer. Fearing political injury, Lyndon B. Johnson used the FBI to coordinate his plan to undermine the MFDP. In the end, the MFDP was able to get 2 out of 64 of their proposed delegates into the convention and the Democratic party promised to stop excluding African Americans from the selection process during the next DNC.  Although many saw this as a step foward, the MFDP saw it as an insult.