[Atlantic City, New Jersey: NAACP? 1964].
Price: $500.00
Unbound. Small broadside. Measuring 8½" x 11", printed recto only. Old horizontal fold, recto tanned, very good.
While Johnson and Humphrey's nomination for president and vice-president were never in question, the convention became a pivotal moment in Civil Rights history when the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party claimed the seats for the Mississippi delegates. As opposed to the official, segregated Mississippi Democratic Party which had systematically excluded African-American voters, the MFDP had elected its delegates in line with party rules, i.e. regardless of race. This prompted a rally, protests, and a televised hearing in which Fannie Lou Hamer famously spoke on the violence perpetrated against African-Americans in her state. Johnson—fearing losing the South to Goldwater—offered a "compromise": two nonvoting seats at the convention and the promise that future Democratic National Conventions would be integrated. The MFDP ultimately rejected the proposal, but this showdown was one of the major events that paved the way for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Item #616053
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