(Draft) From Julian Bond to Art Pine, ca. 31 Dec 1968

Art Pine ATLANTA CONSTITUTION WASHINGTON BUREAU ^{Nat'l Press Club Bldg. Room 647} WASHINGTON, D.C. ²⁰⁰⁰⁴

Dear Art:

I was disturned to see some week ago a column by you in which you speculated on the outcome of the "Committee challenge" filed by the Georgia Loyal National Democrats.

I say disturbed because you indicated that I had not supported the national Democratic ticket as heartily as did Mrs. Thurman or Mr. Trotter.

Their support, or my lack of it for that matter, is not an issue in this challenge, just as the loyalty or lack of it was not the Ssupreme issue in the Georgia Chicago Convention challenge.

Had loyalty alone been the issue there, we could have won easily, You will recall that the "regular" delegation had difficulty finding 21 members of their 107 member delegation to fill their seats when a loyalty oath was imposed, and had to resort to using wives and husbands as delegates.

However, in both cases, we have chosen to state the issue of procedural lines. We believe that the election - or rather, selection - of Mrs. Thurman and Mr. Trotter was irregular and a part of a process disaproved by the National Convention.

Our information is that they were chosen on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 27 by the regular delegation - prior to the seating of any delegation from Georgia. The loyalists were neither informed or invited to attend the meeting where this election took place. In fact some regulars have told us they did not even know of such a meeting. The Democratic Manual states that Georgia's Committee posts are to be filled by election by tge Georgia Delegation.

Rule 54 of the Georgia Democratic Executive Committee, however, provides that the Chairman of the Committee alone elects the Committeeman and Committeewoman. We understand that the regulars now contend that the August 27th meeting was held merely to ratify the chairman's choice.

On August 28, we sent a telegram to John Bailey protesting the selection process. On Thursday, Mr. Bailey adived me orally to "try to work something out." with the regulars.

We invited the regulars to meet with us at a meeting in a caucus room at the ampitheatre. Several of the black delegates did so, but left, saying they agreed with us but did not wish to vote twice on the same issue

I hope to be in Washington on January 13th with Representative Ben Brown to appear before the Credentials Committee on the Democratic National Committee.

Representative Brown, incidentially, is our choice for Committeeman; Mrs. Mercedes Wright of Savannah is our choice for Committee woman.

If the sweearing -in ceremony for the state legislature here allows us to attend, we hope we will see you there.

Sincerely,

blind cc to: Rep Ben Brown, Attorney Al Horn ^(Atlanta) Mrs. Baldwin:

If you can find any clips in which I urge support for Hubert Humphrey send copies along with this.