As head of SNCC , Barry led protests against racial segregation and discrimination . After he left McComb , Barry 's lobbied the state legislatures to try to convince them to vote to make the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ( MFDP ) the recognized Democratic party of Mississippi in the 1964 Democratic National Convention . In a protest of their continuing disenfranchisement , African Americans had organized this party to prove that blacks wanted to vote and conducted a trial election . Barry slept on the boardwalk in Atlantic City the night after speaking to the New Jersey Legislature
1964 Democratic National Convention
1964 Democratic National Convention
Marion Barry