My first political convention was in 1964, when Democrats convened in Atlantic City to nominate Lyndon Johnson for a full term as president. I was a young copyboy at the NBC News network bureau in Washington. We arrived from Washington aboard a chartered DC-3 plane that also carried the late anchor/reporter Frank McGee and his wife.
Emotions were still raw from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy only nine months before. A floor battle over the seating of the delegation from Mississippi added to the drama and public interest. The “Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party,” which was integrated, demanded to replace the all-white elected delegates on the grounds that blacks had been excluded from voting in the Mississippi primaries. A compromise was reached and that convention marked the last time Democrats would accept segregated delegations.
