MFDP--General papers, 1965-1971, part 1 (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party records, 1962-1971; Historical Society Library Microforms Room, Micro 788, Reel 2, Segment 2, Part 1)

A description of the overall contents of the MFDP files in the Wisconsin Historical Society, including a short history of the MFDP, opens this folder. This particular MFDP folder deals largely with the MFDP's "Congressional Challenge": its efforts to prevent the seating of white segregationist Mississippi congressmen in 1965 on the grounds that they were elected unfairly as African Americans had been systematically prevented from voting in their elections. Other topics deal with the advent of the War on Poverty--many of whose programs were administered by segregationists to the detriment of the people for whom it was intended--and the increasingly desperate conditions of displaced Delta agricultural workers by 1966. The folder includes minutes from a statewide MFDP meeting held in May 1965 which call for a march in Jackson in support of the congressional challenge and to publicize the need for free elections. A variety of press releases about the basis for the congressional challenge,