It was rejected by the MFDP as an insult. I was standing on the boardwalk in Atlantic City with the other MFDP supporters who had spent days vigiling outside, after hitchhiking from Berkeley, California to join them. I felt a wave of anger wash over the crowd as the proposal was announced. For a brief moment I thought that crowd was going to break out in a riot. The leaders started marching them up and down the boardwalk chanting until they were worn out enough to calm down.
For the next 50 years I listened to civil rights supporters talk about the sense of betrayal they felt when the MFDP was offered two seats rather than all 24. They saw it as a slap in the face. Yet, that too was a victory, not a defeat. It just took a few years to see how tremendous a victory it was.
That MFDP challenge led to a revolution within the Democratic Party. Within a few years it wrote national rules to require that delegations reflect the age and race composition of their own populations, and that women get 50 percent of the votes. The Supreme Court ruled that national party rules supplanted state law. The MFDP eventually integrated the Mississippi Democratic Party, and the Solid South changed from Democratic Blue to Republican Red.
Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont, portrait from his website (right)
We don't yet know what the Bernie movement will lead to, but it will lead to something if those lists of supporters and contributors are used to organize within the Democratic Party rather than attack it from without. If Hillary becomes President, Bernie will be an important political leader with major influence on her administration. If Donald Trump becomes President, Bernie will only be the Senator from Vermont. If the Senate goes Democratic, Bernie will be a leader within it; if it stays Republican, he will only be an irritant.
Berniers should follow Joe Hill's advice: Don’t mourn, Organize.
©2016 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com
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