Remembering the turbulence

By Curtis Wilkie, Globe Correspondent, 8/18/2000

OS ANGELES - Walter F. Mondale, an elder statesman of the Democratic Party, calls the collection of black and white men and women from Mississippi at this year's convention ''the most beautiful delegation in America.''

Thirty-six years ago in Atlantic City, Mondale was an unknown attorney general from Minnesota confronted with the task of resolving a challenge to an all-white Mississippi delegation by a predominantly black group calling themselves ''Freedom Democrats.''

Mondale hammered out a compromise that satisfied few on either side yet helped save a spot on the ticket with President Johnson - who wanted no disruptions - for Mondale's mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey. But Mondale's work in 1964 had a more far-reaching impact, leading directly to a series of reforms that opened up the Democratic Party to women, blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and gays while stripping the bosses from Tammany Hall and Chicago's City Hall of power.

''I think the Freedom Democrats' challenge, the rules changes that flowed from that, the decision we made to come clean on civil rights, all produced a peaceful revolution,'' Mondale said. ''We made the turn the Republicans haven't.''

It was a long and stormy journey for the party, however, and Mondale, a veteran of 10 Democratic conventions, reflected on the changes in an interview Tuesday.

Though he was not a delegate, Mondale, a young party worker in Minnesota, remembered the 1948 convention in Philadelphia. Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis, triggered a walkout by Southern delegates with a ringing call for civil rights.

During Mondale's first convention as a delegate in 1964, he said, ''We still had all-white, male-segregated delegations. Some of them made it clear they had no intention of supporting Lyndon Johnson. It was a very poisoned situation.''

By 1968, new party rules demanded loyalty to the ticket from delegates. By the 1972 convention, the Democrats insisted that delegations reflect the demographics of each state regarding gender and racial background. Both conventions were turbulent.

''The civil rights issue was unavoidable, and it just tore the party apart,'' Mondale said. ''Then the war ripped us further apart. By 1972, we were held together by bailing twine.''

Discord over the Vietnam War spilled into the streets of Chicago in 1968. Four years later, delegations led by party chieftains such as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, were banished from the convention hall in Miami Beach in favor of more representative groups.

Order began to be restored to the party in 1976, when Mondale wound up on the ticket as Jimmy Carter's running mate. ''Things that used to be fought out at conventions were no longer issues.''

Asked if the Democratic conventions had lost their flavor, Mondale said, ''Well, they're certainly very cadenced now. ... One old-timer told me last night: `These things are not as much fun as they used to be.'''

Although the Democratic presidential nominees have been assured prior to every recent convention, some incident usually managed to enliven the gatherings. Mondale precipitated problems at the 1984 convention that nominated him for president by attempting to unseat the party chairman, Chuck Manatt. President Clinton's renomination in 1996 was marred by news that his political strategist, Dick Morris, had been linked with a prostitute.

''Even as we speak, someone is probably dreaming up some disruption'' for this year, Mondale said, laughing at the thought of a Democratic convention without some controversy.