Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

MFDP convention in Jackson, Mississippi. Click for larger version.

This lesson explores one of the most important events in the fight for true democracy in U.S. history, when a coalition of grassroots activists challenged the Mississippi political system, the federal government and the national Democratic Party that excluded citizens on the basis of race. Working within the political “rules,” the activists formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP or FDP) in 1964 and mounted a legitimate challenge to the existing system of race-based exclusion. In the process, they garnered a national audience and sparked moral and ethical debates. As historian John Dittmer explains in Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi:

The Freedom Democratic Party (FDP) was one of the most important and distinctive institutions to emerge from the civil rights movement. It challenged white supremacy in the most repressive state in the South, combining grassroots activism with a radical social agenda. FDP had its origins in the fall of 1963, when the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) conducted a “Freedom Vote” to dramatize the exclusion of African Americans from the political process in Mississippi.

More than 80,000 blacks voted black NAACP state president Aaron Henry for governor and white Tougaloo College chaplain Ed King for lieutenant governor in this mock election. The election’s success led to the creation of an independent, black-led, state Democratic Party that would challenge the legitimacy of the state’s white supremacist delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the summer of 1964.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer speaks before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, 8/22/1964; AP.

The events surrounding the MFDP’s efforts to be seated at the Democratic National Convention of 1964 in Atlantic City provide a strong example of the unprecedented and sophisticated organizing techniques used to challenge the state sponsored terrorism that blocked voting rights based on race. In this lesson, students step into the shoes of key people at the Democratic National Convention in a dramatic role play based on the real challenges and decisions facing the MFDP delegates.

It is our hope that after this introduction to the MFDP, students will want to learn more about the people and the strategies used to fight for voting rights in the United States. We look forward to your comments and suggested edits/additions as you use this lesson.

Enduring Understandings

• Compromise does not always equal justice.
• When voting rights are denied to anyone, everyone lacks democracy.
• The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was not fighting for integration to the existing structure, but instead for a new structure that was truly equitable and democratic.
• The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party demonstrated that true democracy and full citizenship are possible with everyone having an equal voice regardless of literacy levels, gender, class, race, and connections.

Essential Questions

• What would it take for there to be legitimate democracy in the United States?
• Why did Mississippians, in the face of state sponsored terrorism, take the leadership in challenging the national political party structure?

Time

Two to three class periods

Grades

For students in grades 7 and above

Video clips

• MFDP background from Eyes on the Prize
• Fannie Lou Hamer speech at 1964 Democratic National Convention from Freedom Summer
• MFDP response to compromise from Eyes on the Prize

Teacher Preparation

Learn as much as possible about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) before you teach the lesson. Here are some key resources.

Readings Online

• MFDP Challenge to the Democratic Convention (PDF). A detailed history from the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website, crmvet.org
• Mississippi at Atlantic City by Charles Sherrod in Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
• Martin Luther King Papers Project description of the MFDP
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans website primary documents and reflections

Books

• I’ve Got the Light of Freedom by Charles M. Payne
• SNCC: The New Abolitionists by Howard Zinn
• Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi by John Dittmer
• Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC edited by Faith S. Holsaert, Martha P. N. Noonan, Judy Richardson, Betty G. Robinson, Jean S. Young, and Dorothy M. Zellner
• For a Voice and the Vote: My Journey with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party by Lisa Anderson Todd

Films

• Standing on My Sisters Shoulders
• Freedom on My Mind
• Eyes on the Prize
• Freedom Summer