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October 22, 1968

Dear Mr. Buckley,

I don't have the slightest idea about what the future...if any...of the Democratic Party in the United States might be.

I do know that in this section of the country, there are no "Democratic parties" as you might know of them in New York state. Instead, we have Governor's parties, headed and directed by whatever man who calls himself a Democrat happens to be in power at the time.

The Southern task, therefore, is building a party of some kind, calling it either "Democratic" or "Freedom Democrats" or whatever.

In Georgia, a first step toward that goal has been taken. There is a statewide organization here called the Democratic Forum. It was this group that called the convention that elected the challenge delegation that went to the Chicago convention.

My hope is that this group can become a party, or more correctly, an organized group of Georgians who place a high priority on electoral politics a great deal to the left of the organized electoral politics so common to this region.

That process, if it is to be successful, will take nearly eight or ten years, I believe, and a lot of hard work and a lot of money