The FDP challenge was the culmination of three years of intense, dangerous work; its success would have changed the nature of the organization today. In 1968, such a success would be meaningless to the organization, which has since discarded the notion of reform through political action.
The 1964 Convention marked the beginning of real cynicism by organization staff members toward “establishment” liberals, Negro and white, and a beginning of national liberal cynicism toward the organization, its methods and ideals.
The passage of national civil rights legislation in 1964 and the riot of Watts that summer helped to cool the ardor of a few white sympathizers who believed the total movement was a part of the riots or that the ’64 bill achieved many of the movement’s goals.
Through this period and over the year before, there existed with the organization a loose group called sarcastically the “Freedom Highs.” This group professed a belief in democracy, in “letting the people decide.” Too much democracy produced eleven-day staff meetings, an unwillingness on the part of executives to make decisions, and the beginning of a pretense, under which programs were to be decided by “local people.” Aggressive organizing will not wait for local decision making, and the conflict between honest intent and impatience for immediate action produced further internal stress.
Over the fall of 1964 and the winter and summer of 1965, the organization’s programs stilled and hopes diminished, despite additional national legislation.
Following the murder of an organization staff member (a Navy veteran who had seen service in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the first employee to lose his life in the organization’s history) and in response to internal pressures from staff members and to external pressures from liberal whites, some active supporters of the organization, there was issued a statement, highly critical, in strong language for that time and region, condemning the war in Vietnam, linking it to American imperialism and explaining that the organization considered itself one with the “Third World” and considered the American enemy to be domestic racism and domestic colonialism and the continental United States to be the proper battleground.
The response to this document was near unanimous condemnation. The organization again lost important financial support from liberal whites, some few of whom supported the anti-war position but questioned the wisdom of a civil rights organization taking such a lead.
Some members of the staff had correctly predicted this reaction, but internally such criticism and condemnation deepened organization distrust of the liberal American community and hostility to the American government.
In 1966, a new chairman was elected in a late night meeting, sensationally reported in the press as a “coup.” News reports of the election process, militant speeches made by the winning candidate, and anti-white sentiments expressed at the election meeting and elsewhere caused further public estrangement from the organization and consequent organizational alienation from the public at large, the white media, and the liberal establishment in particular.
Shortly thereafter, the “Black Power” slogan was created, defined (by the organization to no avail; by the public as a sinister ideology), attacked, and discredited.
Each new attack frustrated . . . future attempts at communication with the greater public, the “outside world,” the world composed of white and Negro opponents and antagonists to Black Power under nearly any definition.
Indeed, some critics refused to accept organizational definitions; Roy Wilkins, for instance, declared that he “knew” Black Power meant racism and ruin, while Vice President Humphrey both condemned and supported the slogan in the space of one month.
The resignation that summer of the organization’s former chairman (a firm advocate of nonviolence, often reviled as “super militant” when active as chairman but revered as a temperate force in retirement) and the resignation of the publicity director just prior to a riot connected to the organization in Atlanta gave credence to the liberal notion that “moderate militants” were leaving the organization.
The organization’s field activities lapsed under the new administration. The lack of funds and programmatic aid from the headquarters, as well as the preoccupation in the headquarters with scheduling public appearances for the new chairman, caused less concentration of manpower, support, and finances in field operations. One project, located in Atlanta, operated for more than a year without registering a single voter, organizing any semblance of a community group, or doing little more than issuing polemics defining Black Power.
A new chairman has been elected. Both the old (’66) and new chairmen are public figures, often appearing to compete for militancy.
Organizational field activities are presently carried on by a small number of dedicated workers whose number is constantly shrinking (two were killed on August 5th).
In the headquarters, work that formerly occupied 35 persons is done by five. The professional photography labs are barely used; the immense and expensive printing shop does occasional job work and little organization literature.
In sum, the organization engages in little of the form of substance of the field work that won its reputation. Its research library is unused, and the research staff gone.
Many employees have sought temporary or full-time outside jobs simply to feed themselves.
The organization, except for the former and present chairmen and a few workers, has come to a halt.
At present writing, it consists of 50+ employees and perhaps 1,000 supporters who will engage in volunteer work. . . .
Members live insular lives, effectively contained by their own unwillingness to trust the “outside world.”
Suspicion and theories of conspiracy plague their lives. During the week of July 30, members were convinced President Johnson had given the FBI, state, and local police forces a list of the names of 15,000 Negro militants, all of whom were to be arrested that week and held in concentration camps. Needless to say, all organizational staff members believed their names were on the list.
ALTERNATIVES
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The present organization seems likely to continue as long as it receives minimal financial support and as long as its public figures retain the necessary charisma to draw crowds and raise funds. The jobs held by members outside the organization will allow part-time participation without pay in organization work and could bolster the group’s staying power for years.
The organization is, then, a fact and a staying presence.
Assuming the need for retaining a cadre of militant youth whose main thrust will be southern, rural, community and political action, the group could be maintained in the following ways:
—by developing among present members a rationale for a return to large-scale political action through the suggestion and urging of outside forces and outside funds. . . .
Or the organization could be funded to engage in urban activities, or both urban and rural, although past performance would indicate an expertise at rural work.
Or the organization might be encouraged to choose one particular section of the South for experimentation with a new “Reconstruction,” attempting to use movement techniques of direct action, political and economic organization attempts, youth organizing, and a multitude of communitywide attempts at mobilizing the total Negro community for political, educational, and economic advancement.
Or the organization may be induced to direct its efforts into a single phase of community work. . . .
Finally, attempts at “rehabilitating” both the organization and the individuals who make it up are attempts which deal with a symptom of a national disorder; to really set the organization right is to set the nation right, a difficult task, the trying of which set the organization on its present course.
In summary, any attempt to redirect the individual members of