In response to Thulani Davis's "Black and Brown Leave Green"
[November 20] on the "Fannie Lou Hamer reflex": It is
encouraging to see current radical analysis based on a heroine
and on one of the most critical of recent events. There is,
however, one understandable misconception. The power system also
has its control reflex.  Davis ends her article on a triumphant
note: " . . . and in 1968, black Mississippians had their day."
This refers to the Chicago Democratic Convention, where old-line
racist delegates were replaced. But under the control reflex,
this was not the movement's "day," although that is what the
public was told.  Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party were under FBI surveillance in 1964, then by COINTELPRO,
and worse. The White House systematically worked to control and
destroy any grassroots independent action, especially by the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1968 Dr. King was
removed. Later Hamer and a few of us were momentarily tolerated
in the newly created Loyalist D