MFDP Chapter 30 LAWRENCE GUYOT Interview 0305 Lawrence Guyot 0306 Negro male Jackson, Miss. FDP: Chairman of the party A: And after Parchman for some time in Jackson, and the question of attempting to go beyond a coalition of civil rights organizations, and organize the Freedom Democratic Party. Atlantic City, the Congressional Challenge, the Freedom elections, and now, really, in depth organizing and trying to spread throughout the coast. Q: What sort of work were you doing with the FDP before you took over as Chairman? A: None. The organizational meeting was the culmination of precinct meetings, Tony caucuses and district caucusses and the state convention, at which the state executive committee and the delegation to Atlantic City were elected. So I entered into the Party in the present capacity. Q: You immediately became Chairman in July or August of that year? A: August. Q: After the convention? A: After the convention, the Congressional Challenge? Q: The Congressional Challenge. A: Before the Congressional Challenge. Q: Could you talk about the development of the Party since it started last year, particularly the Challenge? A: Well, the development of the Party, and the develop- ment of the Challenge coterminus. In that unless they were...lt was initially that they were both national and, shall we say, parochial enough to stimulate interest, well then we could not have developed until out of Congress. Because the issue of voter registration, while it's broad enough, while we've done everything under the cloak of the First, Fourteenth, Fifteenth Amendments possible, we can only go so far with it. People have to have some feeling of belonging to something that's theirs. Now, the Congressional Challenge was a beautiful opportunity for that, and incidentally, we're going to win the Challenge. It's going to be brought up in this session of Congress. We have the support of all the civil rights organizations. They're going to be...ln the next three weeks, we're going to be pushing to make sure it's really considered a bi- 0305-2 A (cont'd): partisan issue. We're going to be meeting with the House leadership on Thursday, both of the Repub- licans and the Democrats. And we're going to be meeting with the Speaker shortly and our concern is to bring as many people from Mississippi as possible up there and the existence of the August 17 referendum is simply we consider quite a bit of substance that will add validity to our allegations that Negroes were systematically denied the right to participate in the elections. That's the issue. The issue is not whether one of the Congressmen or a group of the Congressmen, two, three, or five, actually themselves disenfranchised a Negro or more, but whether or not Negroes, during the period leading up to the election, which they were, pardon the expression, elected in, were disenfranchised. There's absolutely no question about that now. The use of 250 attorneys, who came into the state, take depositions, which have now been printed now, by, after untimely and uncalled-for delay by the Court, are....The Civil Rights Commission Report on Mississippi, the facts and findings of subcommittees on the voting conference all point out that the Challenge does have basis. It will be decided on in this session. And I think we're going to win it. Q: What should happen if, by chance, it does fail? Where do you think the Party will go from there? A: If the thing does fail, that simply means that we come back to Mississippi. We continue to register large number of people in each county, run local, county, and state officials in all elections and immediately, if we lose the Challenge whether we lose the Challenge or not we're going—to select a candidate to run against -* Senator Eastland and have that person begin campaigning immediately. That's the election that will be done, more than likely, in the next two months. Q: Are there any people who might be selected as a candidate? A: That's up to the people to decide. Q: You wouldn't want to name any... choose any contenders? A: Well, there are quite a few front-runners. The choice is open, and we feel that if the nominating conventions in each county, then we get a broader base of participation initially, than if we simply pick someone from the top echolon of the Party. That way, we can. .we found by practical observations, that if people are initially in- volved in decisions, they are much more likely to work through them to the point of culmination than to enter it at any other phase. 0305-3 Q: Which District is this in? A: This is statewide. This is a Senate election. Q: What about the impact of the McComb Statement? A: I think that any two individuals, sitting at any point in the world, have a right to make a statement. And just as long as the statement is not interpreted as Party policy, people should voice their opinions. Q: Do you think that this has been misrepresented as Party policy? A; I think it has been and I think that it will continue to be, and I think that if it were not for the political explosiveness of independent political organization, the barrage would not have been levied, and the concept of issue-oriented politics has simply been something very abstract. And very... it's been overused verbally. And to my knowledge, the closest thing that approaches it is the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Q: What exactly do you mean by issue-oriented? A: I mean. ..well, that's a very good question, because the issues involved in Mississippi for the last 73 years have been exclusionary and negative. Interposition, null- ification, control of every institution by the ruling order, And the issues that we're concerned with are very simple: free and open elections, open inquiry, law and order , ... Rather trite, when verbally described, but meaningful if you're going to question institutions on the basis of function, which is what we've continually done. I think the Challenge at Atlantic City couldn't be described in any other way. Now, the issues as such can be meaningful 0n1y... 1 think they're valuable can be evaluated in ratio and proportion to the receptivity of the people involved. In that the....lf elections aren't, in and of themselves, become an end, which they have become, for a lot of political coalitions in the country, not only in Mississ- ippi. Then you obviate any chance for expression and for the type of issue competition. What happens is you have... you compete on the personality level and in the last Presidential Election, we elected a professional and brilliant bigot. And we did not elect an impulsive and spontaneous, impetuous individual, who threatened to do exactly what is being done now. As long as the only alter- native in American politics is personality-oriented, we have very little choice but to have no choice. Q: What do you feel about the role of the federal govern- ment with regard to the movement? 0305-^ A: I think that independent political organizing is a dangerous thing. I think it will not be allowed. I think that character assassinations and political assas- sinations and pragmatic assassinations of our positions and our people will definitely be resulted t0....by some respectable institutions in this country. Q: Do you think that the federal government is more of a hindrance than a help? A: I don't know. What do you think? Q; It seemed like you were saying that the future of the Freedom Democratic Party is to be killed off. You don't think that it's going to grow and perhaps become a national party? A: The Freedom Democratic Party can only exist where there are two things: a need for issue-orientation and/or proj- ection, and inconsistencies. Q: Why the second? A: Why the second? Well, if everyone had a job, if everyone had an applicable and replete education, if everyone had equal opportunities of access to information, relaxation, medicine, and could feel creative, there would be no need for the type of party that, off the cuff, attempts to do everything. Any program that you can name, we're attempting to do it in Mississippi, under the umbrella of the Freedom Democratic Party. Q: Are there any plans to organize a similar type of party or tandem party throughout the South? Do you think other areas would be receptive to this? A: I think that there are inconsistencies and there are issues which need to be projected in other areas of the South. Q: It's very interesting. I'm thinking of the old Pop- ulist idea of the Southern alliance. Do you see a possib- ility of this, a Southern alliance? A: Definitely not. The Freedom Democratic Party will never...as long as the national Democratic Party remains the amorphous monolith that it is, there's no need for a third party. We're the Democratic Party in Mississippi. It's up to those 50 individuals that sit on the Dem- ocratic National Committee to rule otherwise. To rule otherwise means that they're throwing away votes. Q: Do you see a chance that the MFDP might eventually 0305-5 Q (cont'd): be recognized as the Democratic Party of Mississippi by the national Democratic Party? A: In Minnesota, the former Labor Party, and that doesn't sound like the Democratic Party, does it, is recognized as the formal Democratic Party.