HE Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(M.F.D.P.) contends that primary elections held i Miss. June 2nd and the general election held November 3rd are void. It is also contesting the seating of three Mississippi Congressmen. They charge that the elections ‘violate the Constitution and laws of the United States because Negroes throughout the state of Mississippi . . . were systematically and almost totally excluded from the electoral process.’ The M.F.D.P. is also challenging the elections of June 2nd and November 3rd on the grounds that they violated the 1870 Compact between Mississippi and the Congress of the U.S.A. The Freedom Democrats contend that in this Compact, Mississippi was allowed to re-enter the Union on the condition that it would never change its constitution, which at that time provided for universal male suffrage with simple. residence and age requirements: and that this condition has been arrogantly ignored since 1890. Referring to the election of the Congressmen, Lawrence Guyot, Chairman of the M.F.D.P. said: ‘We are merely asking in our challenge that the House recognise the simple fact that the rigidly segregated and undemocratic political system in that state, which disenfranchises 428,600 Negroes, has disqualified itself from participation in the U.S. Congress.”
Since its founding convention last April, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party has grown to become the state’s largest grassroots organisation, At that convention, over 200 people representing nearly every part of Mississippi agreed to establish the M.F.D.P. The state-wide ‘Freedom Vote’ in. November, 1963, had laid the broad base the M.F.D.P. now operates from. In that ‘Freedom Vote’ over 80,000 people cast ballots for M.F.D.P. candidates. From that meeting last April came the decision to challenge the regular white Democratic delegation from Mississippi at the National Democratic Convention at Atlantic City. Four Negro candidates ran in the June 2nd Democratic Primary against white candidates and were defeated, One feature of the M.F.D.P.’s growth was ‘Freedom Registration’ and the formation of a duplicate structure to the regular all-white Democratic Group. Over 60,000 people were ‘Freedom Registered’. The building of the duplicate structure involved attempts by M.F.D.P. members to join the regular party structure. Negroes tried to attend precinct and county meetings throughout the state, and after being refused, held their own meetings and elected delegates to a state convention which elected the M.F.D.P. Atlantic City. delegation,