Rachel B Reinhard

The Politics of Change Rachel B Reinhard

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)...gives us some of our most inspiring examples of grassroots leaders and some profound lessons about the limits of mid-twentieth-century liberalism.

-Prof. Charles M. Payne, author I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.

This powerful account of the rise and fall of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) is essential reading, both for those who want to understand what happened to the 1960s civil rights movement in the Deep South and the nation, and for those active today to bring freedom, equality and justice to the United States. It is especially relevant in this period of widespread discussion of racism in America.

MFDP sought to replace the racist "regulars" of the Mississippi Democratic Party with a Black-led, movement informed, Democratic Party. It emerged from a parallel organizing process involving young African-American organizers and activists, and their generational elders. It invited both poor, formally illiterate, and middle-class Black Mississippians into leadership positions.

The Politics of Change carefully analyzes the status quo forces of cooptation and marginalization with which social change efforts must contend. Equally important, it examines internal weaknesses within organizations that must be overcome to achieve significant social change.

Today, when people talk about the racial integration of the political process in Mississippi, they summarize what happened in four words: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.