Testimony Before the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 22, 1964

Abstract

Founded in April 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) sought to show that the blacks of Mississippi would be willing to vote if given the opportunity. Knowing that the white power structure would deny blacks that opportunity, the MFDP selected their own delegates, from the precinct level up to the state convention held on August 5, in Jackson. The MFDP delegation arrived in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 21 for the Democratic Party’s National Convention. The following day, Fannie Lou Hamer testified before the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s testimony, in which she recounts her first attempt to register to vote, her employer’s angry reaction and the violence that ensued, and her brutal beating inside a jail in Winona, Mississippi. Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration offered the MFDP delegation two at-large seats for Aaron Henry and Edwin King, which the party rejected.