Although Joseph Rauh, the MFDP’s lawyer, initially refused this deal, he eventually urged the MFDP to accept it. However, the MFDP delegates refused. They believed that the national party, by accepting the official all-white Mississippi delegation, had validated a process in which blacks had been denied their constitutional right for many decades to vote and participate in the political process. They believed that, because the MFDP had conducted their delegate selection process according to the party's own national rules, they should be seated as the official Mississippi delegation, not just a token two as at-large delegates. Many civil rights activists were deeply offended by the convention’s outcome. As leader (and later Representative) John Lewis said,