STATEMENT CONCERNING MOTION TO DISMISS MISSISSIPPI SEATING CHALLENGE IN U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FROM: Commission on Religion and Race
National Council of Churches
110 Maryland Ave., NE
Washington, DC
For Release :
SUNDAY, September 12
STATEMENT CONCERNING i~". N TO DISMISS MISSISSIPPI
SEATING CHALLENGE IN U. S. HOUSE.OF REPRESENTATIVES
The plan to ask the U.S. House of Representatives to dismiss the seating challenge
brought by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party against the incumbent Mississippi
delegation without adequately hearing the evidence is the worst abuse of Congressional
rules and responsibility.
Last January, at the opening c.." this 89th session, 1^9 members of the House in
landmark action voted against seating the five Mississippi Congressmen. The delegation
was seated, but an investigation was begun of the charges that eligible residents have
been systematically denied the right to vote in Mississippi.
That investigation produced a mountain of evidence, wholly uncontradicted by
anyone publicly, that Negroes, a major segment of Mississippi's population, have been
"oarred for decades, by the various refinements of discrimination, from exercising the
most fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Disposition of that evidence has been a model of political cynicism. First,
although the information was filed in ample time, the Clejk 0f the House dragged out
for months printing the testimony. Now we have the attempt to have the whole matter,
so basic to the life of this Democracy, buried without ceremony in the wastebasket of
Congressional history. It is a classic illustration, if one is needed, of how badly
certain parts of our society are represented in the halls of government. Mississippi's
Negroes - and other minorities, economic as well as racial - properly ask whether they,
indeed, have any voice in this, the highest legislative body in the land. If the
motion to dismiss the challenge is acted upon before it is reviewed in the light of
full House scrutiny, the answer would seem to be "No."
The Commission on Religion and Rnce of the Rational Council of Church*1* most
earnestly urges the House of Representatives ••  give the lestJ     Llertyt" !: -.: •' ■  '
the incumbent Kississippi Representative* =. '.a. - ' fair h**rl r..    ' ■" *
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of disservice to ail c-.:r citizens sod ■—. .-.'• r--\. -  • \ *  ■■■■  * r*
believe that oar goverra.-r.ent is r.ct responsive to direct appeals for correction •
abuses and weaknesses that have made 30 many so voiceless so long.
by Rev. Dr. Robert W. Spike
Executive Director
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