On Movements, Campaigns and Conventions
As we head towards a contested Democratic National Convention, lessons from a 1964 movement moment.
Ignoring several weeks of pointed appeals by the Hillary/DNC camp for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the race, the Bernie 2016 Campaign seems to be gathering force as it barrels towards the convention in late July (drawing recent crowds of 10 and 20k in California) and a suddenly spooked Democratic Party has been offering a desperate flurry of carrots and sticks to try and pull Sanders and his followers into the party fold.
Carrots included conceding Sanders more picks on Convention Committees (Bernie pushed for also removing two Clinton-loyal committee chairs, but was denied) and a token platform concession by DNC Chair Wasserman-Schultz on pay-day loan regulation. Sticks included a top Nevada Dem’s unfounded accusation that Sanders’ supporters had a “penchant for violence” and Senator Feinstein’s dark warning that “we don’t want to go back to ’68,” referring to protests at the Dem National Convention that year and conjuring images of cops beating and chasing protestors and journalists through a tear-gas filled Grant Park and into the streets of Chicago. A rash of “security concerns for Dem convention” headlines followed suit.
The image of a violent ’68 Convention was quickly erased by carrot and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who called Sanders “a positive force for the Democratic Party,” and comparisons to the protests and police violence of 1968 “ridiculous.” Then she praised the energy Sanders supporters brought to the primary, and urged them to “channel” their “exuberance.”
Sanders called predictions of a violent convention “absurd” and issued a bold warning to the Democratic Party national leadership that “the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics.” He also challenged the DNC to “open its doors and welcome into the party people who are willing to fight for real economic and social change.” A few days later Sanders found himself having to explain that when he observed in an interview that the convention could get “messy,” he was referring to the sometimes messy process of democracy — not violent protest.
Instead of the “police riot” of 1968, however, it might be more appropriate to revisit the powerful but decidedly non-violent direct actions at the Democratic National Convention of 1964.
The demonstrations outside the Democratic Convention hall in Atlantic City 1964 were constant and peaceful–while inside the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) brought the convention to a halt and helped change the course of party politics, race relations and social movements in the United States. It is one of the great moments in 20th Century American politics, albeit one that is largely ignored by the history books and TV pundits.
The MFDP’s challenge in Atlantic City was the culmination of a brilliant, years-long strategy to bring the nations attention to the brutal and violent Jim Crow system that oppressed and terrorized Southern Blacks, and to ensure federal enforcement of hard-won civil rights laws — including the right for Black Americans to vote and participate fully in political life. In Mississippi, the State Democratic Party was not a vehicle for wide participation in American political life, but rather the opposite: it was an integral part of Jim Crow, and kept Blacks from political participation with an all-white bureaucracy enforced through violence, the threat of violence, incarceration and harassment.
For three years, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) worked with the Council of Federated Organizations (CoFo) to register African American voters across the South. The registration drive culminated in 1964’s “Freedom Summer,” when hundreds of mostly white college-aged activists from the North worked with SNCC activists in rural Mississippi, teaching in Freedom Schools and registering blacks to vote. The MFDP then held county assemblies and a statewide convention to elect delegates to the national convention, as prescribed by Democratic Party rules.
The Freedom Delegation boldly walked into the heart of establishment power when it presented itself at the 1964 Convention and demanded to be recognized as the official delegation from Mississippi. They challenged the legitimacy of the regular Democratic delegation that had been elected in a completely segregated process that violated both party regulations and federal law, and testified that the Mississippi State Democratic Party was in fact an integral part of the racist and brutal Jim Crow system. In essence, the MFDP was demanding that the Democratic Party acknowledge an ugly truth and officially end segregation in the Democratic Party Delegations.
The testimony of share-cropper and SNCC leader Fannie Lou Hamer was especially riveting, and Americans watched on TV, horrified as Ms. Hamer detailed how she was arrested, jailed, beaten and driven from her home and work–simply for attempting to register to vote in rural Mississippi.
Civil Rights leaders including Dr Martin Luther King, Jr also gave powerful testimony, pointing out the basic hypocrisy of the Democratic Party seating a segregated, undemocratic delegation at it’s National Convention.
President Johnson was running unopposed for the Democratic nomination and was concerned that supporting the MFDP and integration of the Democratic Party would lose the Southern vote in the general election. Pragmatic politics trumped principles and decency: the Rules Committee sat the undemocratically elected Mississippi delegation, offering just two symbolic seats to the MFDP. Against the advice of many, including Dr King, the token offer was declined.
Although the MFDP failed in its goal to be seated at the convention, the ramifications of Democratic Party’s refusal to do the right thing were enormous.
The public shaming in Atlantic City forced the party to explicitly ban non-integrated delegations in the future and helped push through the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, enfranchising millions of African Americans. It also helped force realignment of the two parties, with the “Dixiecrats” of the South leaving the Democratic Party, and the emergence of the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” that played off the racism of many Southern whites.
For many, the Democratic Party’s response to the MFDP was a brutal and unexpected affront. Some activists became more radical, moving into the Black Power Movement and Black Panther Party, some continued in the Civil Rights movement, others ran for office.
As SNCC president and eventual Congressman John Lewis later observed:
As far as I’m concerned, this was the turning point of the civil rights movement. I’m absolutely convinced of that. Until then, despite every setback and disappointment and obstacle we had faced over the years, the belief still prevailed that the system would work, the system would listen, the system would respond. Now, for the first time, we had made our way to the very center of the system. We had played by the rules, done everything we were supposed to do, had played the game exactly as required, had arrived at the doorstep and found the door slammed in our face.
It may be tough for the DNC to slam the door in the face of Senator Sanders and his supporters on this attempt to force open the Democratic Party. Even if does not get the nomination, he’ll walk into the Convention Hall in Philadelphia representing almost 10 million primary voters–and have about half the delegates enthusiastically on his side. Bernie has everything to win and nothing to lose by playing his hand as forcefully and as long as he can.
By winning big in California and New Jersey, Sanders could force an open convention and still get the Democratic nomination. If Clinton wins, she will absolutely need Bernie and his supporters in her corner to have any chance of winning the general. She needs him more than he needs her. Bernie is in the drivers seat, and the DNC and Hillary’s campaign knows it.
He’s sure to push hard to include some of his Occupy-friendly policies in the Party platform: tuition and debt free college, Medicare for all and income inequality (tax Wall St/wealthy, $15 min wage, jobs programs), recognition of Palestinian rights and a major reform of the Democratic Party are all on the top of the list.
Sanders has been ramping up his criticisms of the DNC and what his camp sees as a rigged primary process, recently charging that in Nevada “…the Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.” There’s a long list of questionable moves by both state and National Committees including the scheduling of debates, shifting poll hours and hundreds of thousands of purged voters in New York, plus irregularities in Arizona, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. Democratic National Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz confirmed Sanders supporters suspicions about the much maligned Super Delegates when she admitted that they “exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”
Sanders and his supporters may push these claims into a MFDP-style appeal that the primary process was not done in an open and democratic manner. Such a charge could help influence super delegates to shift away from Clinton and create a truly open convention, creating a situation where Sanders could win. If Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, he could force still a major and long-over due overhaul to the Democratic Primary system, starting with the elimination of the Super Delegate system and nation-wide open primaries, which would immediately pull in millions of new participants into the process.
Team Bernie has done impressive, perhaps unprecedented work organizing campaign supporters and turning them into –and perhaps laying the groundwork for a sustainable political party or organization. He has long talked about the need for a “mass movement of people,” but so far has only asked supporters to help get him elected. Win or lose the nomination, the convention provides the right moment for Bernie to talk more about his ideas for the movement after the election, and layout a vision for his political revolution that goes beyond the 2016 election.
T0 create transformative change we’ll need a strong, multi-racial “movement of movements” on the Left that can work within the existing systems and institutions to provide political cover, pressure and support to either a President or Senator Sanders. He, along with Senator Warren and other like-minded allies, will need continued, loud, organized public support for their work in dismantling the existing corporate-dominated decision-making process in DC.
But transformational change has never happened in this country only through conventional politics. Movements also need to work outside of existing systems and institutions to raise consciousness, build new organizations and institutions, collaborate, and protest/withdraw support from existing corrupt or inequitable institutions, systems and officials. We need a social and cultural revolution to support and create a context for Bernie’s “political revolution”.
For those of us working for economic and social justice in this country, there is clearly a lot of hard work ahead. Thankfully we have examples like SNCC, the MFDP, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Movement in general to inspire and guide us. They have much to teach us regarding speaking truth to power, organizing movements and transforming society–both inside and outside of convention halls and party politics.
Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Organizer
