American Experience; 1964; Interview with Bob Moses, Civil Rights Activist, part 2 of 2

but the goal was to do you want to get enough signatures show of atlantic city what were you what was the what was this is to use in their house and you know so i'm going to show you a show america that there are all these people in mississippi right right right so you know but then the national democratic political convention is a huge theater it's the internet that's going on and so and it's also protected space that is you know by an alum organized the meeting in the middle of freedom summer it had a monolith became come down and ella baker and the young and the snake leadership i and so his question to us was we're only going to recruit the the

radicals and the nationalists from philadelphia right to do non violent destruction of the convention because if we were if that was part of a possible strategy thinking should not be all right because you know if he needed that so we're sure but then we had no idea about doing anything like that but we didn't rule out the idea that the delegates themselves if they decided they wanted to do some direct action that they would do it so this is the idea is you know this is a big political theater and you have a chance to put your case before the country right so oh really us secret weapon a

weapon was mrs hamer right yes ray we knew that her ability to ignite passion and response an endpoint it was because she was tool to actually be affected by pomp and circumstance right it was or what word but she had evolved into was too deep into your bones right and so i know we knew that she would be able to actually lead up the country i mean all we need yes that it was watched what it was that she had experienced some had transpired over our whole life right and as she did those students and the movement head woke up and there

was no going back to sleep right and so then we had been encouraging era every point right cause you would ask us in a whole sort of is it okay you know i'm not talking about at them convention bump long bout in mississippi right as she's speaking out right because this is the other thing she was a woman speaking out in a culture that didn't have you know women leaders who i am and so we were encouraging and every time frank and this is part of also one ella had problems because bella taught us and she taught us the way she did it right which she was that ok there's a sit in movement and all the seven leaders

and she insisted that they have their own voice and that was what snake what's right but hello was the press soon they made sure that the students in a movement had a student voice right and she taught us about the idea of looking for leadership in the people that you're working with and matt common during the leadership space yourself and so that it actually happened in mississippi there was a space near that i'm dating a human can walk into that had then been taken over by anybody by and so all these things came together at the national convention and i'm it and yet to appear so that is the credentials committee but you know and this is the other think i'm so keen was a leader of the movement but he could be a

member of the delegation i write so there was all part of the work of the movement which was the organizing of the people could actually make such a demand on the country right now analysts said the diva from mississippi they had to be authentically from mississippi right arm because it was that authenticity that can be denied and what you're trying to show was that these people were given the chance i want to purchase that the demand we'll work and a demand side netherlands heidi get the people at the problem to demand the solution to the problem right because upon the autumn in every report it was coming up to me all the country people are apathetic isn't that why they don't do this attack and so that argument you know dissipates it

disappears in the presence of the people demanding their rights right and so that this showcase of the political theater of the convention was that you know the perfect opportunity to put this on and we had the perfect person you know laughter iran's sole well what happened there was an i myself what i'm learning you know and we all are caught on and really steep i mean kurt goes people change hats you know people you working with and then they get up and they put on their national party hat i am leaving king he put on his national hand as the leader michael as he tells the delegation wildflower in your shoes i probably would vote as you have followed but in the shoes that i wish i had i have to support the idea of the national party constructing it is well

the compromises about how do you keep the national party structure together high and you don't let them people wanna keep it together don't wanna push these guys out and push somebody else intel it's a peaceful day laborers city johnson have about a nightmare scenario this convention is the establishment's the year of the mfdp are justified in any way well i think for the johnson as i understand it now is that he really wanted the convention to be this good lynch and now the kennedys convention and certainly not the mfdp convention but the mfdp actually captured the media's attention right that was it became the story of the convention right and so

are up early that really upset johnson in on the party to that but brandi well i guess you could be well i suppose the biggest fear is that it hits the floor there's gotta be overall called fall and kennedy decides he's gonna let in all become the champion of the freedom democratic party or as well well that if that happens then he loses the southern delegations right they base they move move out right and the party is split for inmate for an instinctual politician of his genius that lyndon johnson was the most

of it i'm a parent i can hold another we're shakespearean they read but they feel about the parties breaking apart seem to be lost and so the issue of the party structure i mean it happens a century ago making seventy five i am the election of eighteen seventy six i mean this is an aside but i'm grant is visited by the republican delegation from ohio in eighteen seventy five ohio is not ratified the fifteenth amendment and hayes is running for governor and date us amy grant if you send troops to mississippi he's won the government so graham later says well acted

like a head of the republican party not the president of the united states and so that sets up a scenario in seventy six right with hayes until then try and the deal is struck a haze becomes president the troops get out of the south and the democrats become a one party's southern political machine and write and sew we deal a hero would this the history of the country right which is now brought to a crisis and you know looking back on it it was the right party at the right time right this was their problem and they had they had been created around this problem and so it couldn't

get a result of that and so what happens when favre watch us is that dr johnson that's right so he he would've been so heated so ms is haim it just tells a story that's what that's what mrs hamer this right she tells her story and she questions america what it is i was in i was in back of the cameras so you know he had the cameras out here a minute and then on the other side behind the stands right arm so i don't see your face i see the back of rite aid to see that no no i'm really tickled pink dome in it so but i did know that johnson flag on on tv so that the country can hear it at the time but of course they'd picked up in the evening protests right and the damage had been done

why was he so because in some sense so the whole history of the struggle in mississippi is encapsulated in this is tame it ended in a body in a spirit i am she is willing to let in boots right and but she's she's not a victim right so she's powerful because she's now really part of the solution and she's asking the country to join

her eye and have a different outcome for one this happen again so guzman says hey mama is operating from all a spiritual wellspring right and the spiritual wellspring she never loses it even when the movement disintegrates around and so she never loses that spiritual offspring and that spiritual spring is about what's possible that's good and she's offering them to the country and her story is an awareness of the well she's she's brutally police car right here so though i know now you know that sclc operated a citizenship program as part of the cole full operation an animal ponder was and beating that in

greenwood anne king sentimental was so that because we had a context within which she could safely operate and so out of that context he would recruit people take the modus of column for the citizenship program so coming back fannie lou came early investors simpson and jim johnson they were coming back from one of those retreats stare and when they hit wynona date each week in different ways decided that they would get to the bus station and they were attacked and brutally beaten the peace

bell i said well so that was the problem and we never really knew what was going on but i was china's shadow king finding get any information there there were meetings we had i think we at one meeting with humphrey he was trying to convince us you know that we should not insist on being seeded than that so we had people going out to the delegations and so forth so but we don't know the ropes horrific which had no idea you know what this national democratic party structure it is and how it operates and who the key people on and there was one point where ball

national civil rights leadership was called in from humble wilkins he told me tommy said you know i'm not going to be done since running boy i'm going home so he came down for their meeting but then he left he didn't even stay that participate so you are you are well i think he understood and appreciated what the mfdp was doing but he wasn't gonna be the running board foot johnson who wanted those leadership to convince us right that we should follow what the party structure what were considered the most radical new the mainstream civil rights organizations were sure that they wanted you all doing with junior year alone the noise from the get go and the idea there this tune should go into the mississippi the black belt the toughest

places around was not well received by the their other strategy was loosen up those places by working around them in the mid south mine in them working away and so show from the get go snakes idea was not really what we see yet has that compromise with the scandal at the us is to live in the us well we called to a meeting i'm actually they came and mrs hamer and henry up call home and that date at least and in the ms hammond says that i come calm and that the meaning of hubert humphrey by muslim author ruth or whatever there was that so what the roof is against

johnson's outreach into the labor movement of the country and ninety nine and on a worker's right arm and the person who is counted johnson's am i don't have his name in its communities made parodies a man who is at all the meetings nacho route go well yes on this as someone from the white house right by the animal is doing so that they'll we have a discussion we are told that what isn't that happening right that and there will be two seats that are men and a king will be the recipients of these two seats and that the deal is done and so these exchanges back and forth at that this meeting between humphrey moved by and ann king is at the meeting that was it

no matter what he does well now we're really really wanted it and no i mean the opposition when you say you go as they had at this point the question is well what is the delegations role in deciding which is quite separate from what snake might want i mean i think what i will is really concerned when there was that we turn this theater into a question and that this is a place for the people and we have been working with him for that actually figure out something about politics and the role in it and so all the time and we would be there was no like executive committee of the delegation that dealt with the important people write the delegation met as a whole

to learn what was going on and to figure out how they wanted to respond to and i am so so this was part of the movement that was built this idea that and we gonna do anything down and then somehow the the the energy of the people i asked to be hit by the us to be out corral they have to figure out how they anointed energize themselves and it turned out that the meeting was the most important tool for doing that so i am how those meetings happened at the delegate at the convention when really important yet so it was a quote that no way did you know

at the un meeting at humphrey's there was a meeting with humphrey another was is a meeting before this that man a lot of the democratic party operatives and i think saw the humphrey was the person who was called a meeting and so that the senate and they had an exchange of data and i think this is a more is asking kind of a chiding him that this was an issue that was really greater than or who should be very specific right with hubert humphrey of all people here in the sense that the eve i think humphrey felt that his credentials or unapproachable in terms of his previous struggles within the party structure

around the questions of race and representation so that granite shifted and i mean the sit in movement really shifted all the character actors employed in the people had the problem into the picture that's it was no longer just a discussion between powerful people about them it's now a discussion with them and then they don't use high and so the ground has shifted on us by mrs hamer represented that forcefully she and she had no pretenses about herself becoming part of that structure pay and so that that was not part of what could be negotiated and we'd trade

so out went down so wed well people felt betrayed i'm not sure that we were betrayed what i think is that the actors you know carried out their roles and we got a clear understanding of what all the different roles were nine i'm so so i think that's one and johnson of course was at the center i love making sure that the outcome he wanted to happen right in and he had the power to do their duty so the delegation split and it's split along class lines even though that the middle class and it is no i don't think there was an upper class and mississippi and even as they met as the middle class

was a mississippi cause basically you're talking several thousand teachers right and you can count the doctors on one hand the real is that none of whom and pass the bar and mississippi right so i'm really thin middle class but the naacp is kind of you know the leading force in the delegation of that middle class and i think both those the split happened along those lines so it's in the sense that some people i think saw themselves on so this as an opening into the party structure and some people i can enter a success we moved into the park district but i think the the force of the delegation was carried and this was the work

again that happened early write the work that the howard students did in the delta so we head out delegates via who really were representing ben viewpoint month the ordinary person than coal yes yes and that took quite well what happened was we talk with them about having a cigarette right n bomb and so before we had the big meeting with although the white house the civil rights leader's the senators in the whole delegation and i cause this is ana i think it's a monday after gun but whatever day

we we having this meeting where we are told what we getting the day the convention opens tonight and so when we go back and tell the delegation we discuss having said and having a response to it and so b is an agreement and i start to hunt for delegate tickets so they are black delegates from the midwest ryan thinks of colorado and there are few delegates and a day long media passes and we find a side door right and so we start sneaking delegates in high through the side door until we get enough in to an invasive than in the mississippi delegation seats cry and then of course so this is the adult right this is great piano and it's a

great city in august yes deficits they're one allow the people in those seats right but there were few but there were a bunch of seats there and to mississippi band of an arm and a cause but we're now accused of switching from politics to protest i am i just thought it was wonderful sitting because they were protected and the sense right cause no one has gone to really manhandled them on the floor at the national convention with all the dvd cameras watching right so we have a synonym of them of course the next day we had the big meeting and with all the leadership and the delegation and the delegation and again what was important was

that the whole delegation there and everybody i had a not a small executive committee and then they met by themselves and decided that they would reject the offer it's b was there a moment when you felt personally like you didn't have that somehow that that cripple the fast growing business alone when they do yeah i know we've we had been ahead in the sense that we weren't consulted at all in the steel and delegations wasn't consulted at all these people don't know where one person in charge but these people were presented and you're negotiating with so i'm not really sure my my sense is that probably and henry was in close connection with king

but come and that probably and knew as much as anybody who came by what was going down right so but the delegation itself was getting reports from raul i think i am but and the question was well we gonna have enough votes to put it to the floor by court when the mistake of handing i think it speaks who was a congressman from michigan and digs wanted to know oh which representatives of the credentials committee and phone which would take quote limited the list and

handed it though helped her dates and of course he handed over to johnson people that the screws up here so drop that year of johnston for a minute and so that and then when love this is that you know so i mean we're kind of we have people doing this in that but it's a it's a new improvements in accuracy get her delegation feel when they get it so we went back home we went back to having cardinals such show entrance right in bringing the delegates own arm they have taking the mississippi today is off the floor and they had a circle of fbi agents right circling protecting that space and

so we went in and while johnson was talking the weekend at a circle and just a protest again they didn't bother this is the one day they then close that loophole right out the door out with a week ago and calm when chris is in an area so so then arm the dell week well i think what really happened is that in this process stokely and now a delegation made a decision about what they might what they want to do next and so what happened after this was the on the one hand that mfdp it was sort

of on its own trying to figure out what it's next strategies would be and lansky out who was the chair of became sort of the dominant force because an enemy and the group that agreed to go along with the compromise then began to work with the national party structure they get together with hodding carter jr i and eventually set up what became a well eight sanitized version of the democratic party in mississippi which had some of you a view whites liberals who were ready to make such as stan plus people that aaron henry put together arm

and eventually in nineteen sixty eight the mfdp actually join them at the nineteen sixty eight convention in chicago what happens in emotional or to the sharecroppers america says and the people that we work with will say how they feel at this so so i think that time i think they felt two things i think they felt like they had been the train but i think they also felt like they had gotten their feet wet by then they had actually aches unions right of the party the pot of the politics that was an inaccessible for them and so

they went back and if you look at what actually happened in mississippi and in various different ways on their own and with different volunteers who stayed on with different members of the snake group that broke up but state in mississippi be gay in the work of trying to figure out how to enter into mississippi and civil society so so she went back i think what happened with them is as well pause there was a resurgence which involved in is the same any divine and victoria gray around

challenging the congressional representation to mississippi so that happen the following year and that sort of gave the appearance that there was a real vitality here but the problem with that was he couldn't do both things you can organize all of the energy that was needed for a challenge to mississippi's congressional representation and build your base but this year and so that case was in that and obama as the ceo yes so so i felt like it would take fifty years for people to figure out that the democratic party was not in the party that they needed to work with no

sos rule of that debt burden mandela felt that that would have happened anyway it would take a half a century so what people totally digest it and understand what the ramifications were in palm beach or so so i do feel like well we gonna get the right to vote lake denied don't let this happen again four years later so something has gone and they want to do something people don't understand it and i and the people on board of course all the people not just the national party structure but the civil rights leadership came in the other people they're mad prime does sit

by and wait another four years and have this happen all across the south there's gonna be some movement and so i felt like we were actually gonna get some movement around the right to vote i am and of course that there was movement by that shortly after that johnson is thinking about is on and it shifts from the courts where had been the house to up the president came and the congress can do you feel like you're going to catch a true that when i was done that and turns away then promised and now the words i went to mississippi and promised the anti he as

he put out the proposition and i said i'm going to come and work on this right and so the question that was really is the proposition that was the right to vote the lloyds and do is the one that said well the soonest need to come in here and this is what they need to work on a way that i'm at but what i hadn't understood who i was at that time was that the key was in the national party structure and that that was going to turn the law to unlock mississippi's so was clear the mississippi was gonna change right after that they want to let this happen again but if it wasn't it's clear to me at all what my involvement would be going forward in

such a change it and so from that point of view that piece of the work was over and what we had when you know a year from then as i looked around the state and see it was busy running head start programs in the head a hundred local people right running head start program in in cleveland and though the selma march and happen you know we were gonna get the right to vote so that piece of the work was over the question of what came next was us but from my point to sort of it was snake that had the energy and so snake needed to figure out owl by the snake was

unable to actually did that what happened in the way it was taken away from the sixty sixty four eight wait wait so i'm part of what happened the big picture is that it couldn't absorb all of those volunteers many of whom are now wanting to the snake feels that goes on but it also couldn't figure out a way to grow itself so the way that it chose to blow itself which was to cameron restructure itself from it being a plan a loose network of people man in pockets who really weren't

working on a party to try to structure and authority from an executive level and to kind of sort of reining in their activities it's hard to do because we didn't have money and the work was still dangerous so dick dick destiny and power movement's so called did that he sent the problems is getting in growing from that point onward you know that came after they had settled on a strategy for what that no it's jam jam four minute mini oh was orchestrating a restructuring announcement and then it happened i am when stokely many of us to

john lewis as gyp rosetti right and then while sixty six sixty six it was exhilarating dr compromise he's struck a chord was forced on unit legacy wasn't wasn't there a rule the huge and they know i think that was the point and that they were going at this happen again in the sense that somehow day the national party structure was gonna come to grips with representation from the sol y that day the days of living in are the editorials in the herald tribune in new york times and i knew him and you know the days of lily white representation from the sound of older than those days old and so the question of

howl it would you know transform itself what how it would actually happen where i am and that's that carla politics really is not something i was interested in my arm i was always really interested in well how can we work with the people at the bottom and how do we get them to move site that they move and people often things and everything changes but then that's their problem by how they respond to what's offered and it's a very different level of war right so we handed their work over the mfdp and the people in the mfdp but it was there where we probably what our problem was that there was no no infrastructure and educating people about that war and they didn't have the resources so are you a

lot in a year it was time for me and i actually left mississippi and no effect now that it actually wasn't yeah and actually was an ad i felt like a bad down a piece of the war than i am it was hard to see that i mean the split in other words the hull a group left home and went to alabama him it would have been better if they had stayed and from my point of view and developed the mfdp and mississippi and sent them at bp people felt that way so that's a huge difference riots between the organizers moving and the people working with the people

until they read about was not i was out of the picture as buyers by you want to have freedom school convention meridian radio raheem what was it so so yeah and you know those those the members of that convention are still in touch with each other and they actually planning a reunion and on the fiftieth time and they come back so it was so bummed the reunion but what is the though the freedom school convention good at that so so these are young people

who'll that participated in the freedom schools across on the summer of sixty four and they're coming together to have a voice right and so they actually do begin to speak their opinions about things and i'm including the years since about the vietnam war some of them high so it's i don't know that it um it it's they can manage to figure itself out than it might have managed to actually nurture or that and this whole movement of young people which was coming out of freedom schools as a panel next generation involved in the struggle that didn't happen

what if your you know as the primary architect of this is to do so this is a pro gun exactly when their convention happened and it do you know if that happened before we went to atlantic city probably is that after going to atlantic city you know and so and so then it and i think what it felt like was i'm not really into this at this point i'm in i'm so we're here because i don't have any real memories right

here it's overshadowed with their other reverberations from what happened in freedom summer that spread across the country some eleven maurice idea guys and this will be forgotten the name of it sociologists who had a brilliant idea which was that no shows and i am so he'd even be covered you recovered all of the applicants that had been accepted as volunteers and then

followed those who showed up and those who didn't show up and then as well can we see any impact here of the summit on the lines of this whole configuration of people since presumably those who were accepted all share a certain kind of a certain features and so what they what he what he found was that it had a profound impact on and is a very different trajectory of the people who showed and the people who accepted and for whatever reason didn't show back in terms of their involvement social justice activism and the movement i mean it just spread into all different kinds of crevices of the country some dramatic like free speech and mario savio

really you know that it contributed to his already consciousness but i think part of what it did for someone like mario was i'm merely come equipped him to stand up to police an authority than a year now is it does it feel like it was in some ways a watershed moment for him to meet him for the country and paint on that end not really well understood that problem and not something that the country could really come to grips with that and none of the civil rights

organizations really had a way of understand feeling when eight hundred students that came from our own steam ahead broken with it so they didn't become you know they own thing under his leadership and no one was they could become part of any once network caught our organization so they discounted dissipated right into the general society and disappeared in some sense right people talk about you know mickey and james and andy but not about the whole who they're not celebrated as such they weren't able to be celebrated by the country right arm so it's it's something that's underneath the radar screens some sense right and they couldn't

really mean this freedom summer couldn't really be embraced by any of the national organizations snake couldn't embrace it as it moved into its black power phase ii there aren't even before it moved right into his pipe office rented it couldn't really embrace it and sold it but it was well because it was ambivalent about the actual formation of this large group of white volunteers who won the parsley that he couldn't couldn't absorb them they couldn't really just reject them they can figure out a way right it didn't think that its job was to pull them together and asked them to figure out

themselves but it so that you know there was no pulling together that group and say ok you did this you know let's reflect what you wanna do write what does it mean that does everything himself into saying that and that he's going to play that i'm so what that left me feeling deflate it was as everything was breaking apart own my formal inclinations were having a serious consequences around the draft and so when i turned eighteen i was in the middle of my freshman year at hamilton and the country had a draft and i had to come to some

decisions and wrote the draft board that i don't wanna fight in the what i call the country's up and calming walks so i retained from student deferments and then when sputnik happened they extended deferment to teaches at math so when i left school and was teaching and horse man i was still good for it as soon as i went to mississippi that call me up they are hearing they said no way am i was classified one day and then in tom hayden came through i had actually left mississippi allison birmingham arm in the spring of nineteen sixty five then tom came through saying that as the us was gonna organize a march on washington about the war and as the votes because he knew about this

contentious this objection so i spoke to and then stan lee and who had headed up the freedom schools came to me afterwards and said well johnson was going to escalate the students are gonna be away from school we need on them as something this summer so that was the summer of sixty five star mandate going to myself all them as the promise of americans and people write and sew we have a big meeting in dc we bust up a game must the gay was some money the bus up for mississippi want to remember it so are

you but take a long view about the history of the country what i think has happened and is happening is that every three quarters of a century on the country expands the reach i love its class of we the people so the preamble says we the people organized by an old damon this constitution and that one way of thinking about the country is that it lurches forwards in units of time which are roughly three quarters of a century or so we start out well for first three quarters with this top constitutional division between constitutional people and constitutional property the constitutional people wage internet seen war ii and we get rid of the concept of constitutional

property right and we enter into a period of slavery by another name jim crow for roughly three quarters of a century and what up ends that is the movement in the sixties and sixty four was a watershed in that movement i am so now the country expands right its concept of who the constitution and people are either and it expands and along different diamond jim's one is public accommodations the others who has access to the political arena and the third is the actual national party structure of the democratic party so in that sense that it's the culmination of a unit of constitutional history for me and i got three quarters of a century human rights which in and

these words baum if we have a second class citizens we wanted the first class of sense that that was how he articulated what the situation was right that we got into after you know the the big wall right the civil war i so so that's how i think about it i think with the fiftieth we have two thirds of the way into a third constitutional unit of time and say we hear that so we should care about our democracy and that's an issue we should care about that concept of who the constitution people are in this country i mean if you think about what binds us together and i leave it on a

beer constitutional people when i can be anything we've got to figure out how all the idea of cool awe the constitutional people and what does it mean to be a constitutional persons in this country in that in that sense yes everyone has the ethnicity in their eyes and their religion but what really binds the country together what offers the hope if you just thinking long range rights over the next hundred thousand years was gonna buy in this country together wyatt well if it isn't bound together by that concept of enlarging in deepening the idea of the substance of constitutional personhood is not gonna happen is not going to work right and so it wasn't just something about race sharecroppers freedom riders ride and the dp people they weren't thinking about race they were

thinking about i'm a part of this country it means something i'm a citizen of this country it means something to be a citizen i have a direct relationship to the federal government i want that relationship i want the federal government to tech and say what it means for me to be a part and a citizen of the country and so that is an enduring issue in this country last question is there a legacy you can see right here actually for maybe out your product is about legacy the snake operation in mississippi for me the elder prod it raises the question of the constitutional personhood of young people so we have expanding constitutional

personhood to various classes of adults we have yet to do it to the young people in the country and so the issue of you know this sort of humdrum idea that letter c in algebra is on the table it's on the table because the information age puts it on the table and so its operating it's available as an organizing tool but underneath it raises the same questions we were raising four sharecroppers for the youth right they're not gonna make it if they don't have the literacy is that are needed for the twenty first century and so the question is oh what's their constitutional standing and right now they have nine i n their voice needs to be heard and they need to demand that paint their constitutional rights as young people upon which means that they need

to have the education they need to actually access the twenty percent try to alleviate their sentences silence about us starting out is beside the point