Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up

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Fannie

By the time I was 10 or 12, I just wished to God I was white, you know because they had food to eat, they didn't work, they had money, they had nice homes and we would nearly freeze, we never had food, we worked all the time, and didn't have nothing. (emotional music) And we all lived on D. Marlow's plantation, and Fannie Lou worked on the D. Marlow's plantation. She worked there like 18 years. The persons who worked on the plantations, the sharecroppers, could not leave on his or her free will. I call it neo-slavery because it was in fact slavery. Mrs. Hamer she was 44 years old and had never lived any place but on a plantation, so she wanted to go. I mean they were hostages really. You know they couldn't leave without approval of the plantation owner, and they didn't get much money so they didn't have a lot of money to run away with. All of what they had accumulated was taken away from them by an overseer, a white overseer on the plantation who poisoned their mules and destroyed their crops, and disabled their automobiles. But Mrs. Hamer, she was a very determined person and she had been trying all her life to get away from the plantation. -

Narrator

The direction of Fannie Lou Hamer's life changed in August 1962 when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, held a public meeting in nearby Ruleville. I can remember in 1962 this lady named Mary Tucker. She and my mom was best of friends, and she told my moms that they was having a mass meeting at William Chapel Church. And she asked my mom did she want to come? -

Fannie

And they talked about how it was all right that we could register to vote. And they was talking about we could vote out people that we didn't want in office. I'd never heard until 1962 that black people could register and vote. And you can understand why you got 70% of the population of the whole county, black, and then you got nothing but white people in office. -

Fannie

So then they asked who would go down on Friday, which was the 31st to try and register. So I went down, I was one of the person that said I would go. And people were really nervous about this trip to try and register to vote, a hostile act directed at white supremacy. I was on the bus, and everybody on there was afraid, even myself. White men in trucks were driving by, waving guns, and yelling you know obscenities at us, and so these people on the bus were kind of upset and Fannie Lou Hamer started to sing. This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine She began to sing "This Little Light," and people calmed down and were ready to face whatever they had to face. This little light of mine And just with the power of her voice, was clear that she was easing the fear. Let it shine Well it didn't take long for the registrar and other people to shut down the circuit clerk's office where you went to register to vote. And so now people had to go back home. When they was on their way back home they got stopped by the highway patrol, and the reason they got stopped highway patrol told 'em that the bus was too yellow. You riding a school bus, what other color it's gonna be? Before she made it home, quite naturally the registrar called D. Marlow and letting him know that Fannie Lou was down there trying to register to vote. -

Fannie

And the land owner drove up, he said you'll have to go down and withdraw your registration or you will have to leave this place. And I didn't call myself saying something smart, but I couldn't understand it and I ansewred in the only way I could and told him that I didn't go down there to register for him I went down there to register for myself. And he said that well you'll have to go, and so he pulled away and she went back into the house. She would leave her husband and her two daughters on the plantation and that she would leave so that they could bring in the crop so that they wouldn't owe the plantation owner any money. Daddy took Mama to Miss Mary Tucker's house. On the tenth of September of 1962, my daddy felt some kind of way that Mama wasn't safe there, so we all got together, packed up some clothes, and he got my mom and took her to Sumner, Mississippi. -

Narrator

Mr. Hamer's premonition was accurate. That very night, the Tucker house was attacked. -

Fannie

The tenth of September is when they shot in that house 16 times to kill me. -

Narrator

On the bus trip to register to vote, Mrs. Hamer had caught the eye of civil rights organizers who then wanted her to attend a SNCC conference in Nashville. Bob Moses called me and told me to go and find the lady who did the singing on the bus. I found her up in Tallahatchie County in a little shack, plantation shack, and I walk into the room there's this wingback chair with the back to the door, and a potbelly stove, coal burning red, and I said Bob Moses sent me to get Fannie Lou Hamer and she stood up and said "I'm Fannie Lou Hamer." I mean, ready to go. I mean didn't know if I was a kidnapper or what. You know, never thought about that. She left with him, and that woman been traveling ever since. Mrs. Hamer's presence at the 1962 SNCC conference in Nashville where you could see for the first time, you know, a local person from Mississippi reflecting exactly what you wanted to find in the rural south. It becomes clear we're dealing with somebody different. This is no submissive, docile, servile, sharecropper. This is a woman of considerable strength. When she stepped forward, I don't think anyone at SNCC realized how strong she was and she may not have realized how strong she was. And so Fannie Lou Hamer was just what we had been looking for. 'Cause she didn't wait around. I mean she just got right to work continuously canvasing communities and encouraging people to go to the courthouse. She said 'cause voting is your voice. You know to decide on who you want to represent you, or who you want to be your president. -

Narrator

On June 9, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer was returning by bus from a voter registration conference in South Carolina. They stopped in Winona, Mississippi and some of them wanted to use the bathroom, some of them wanted to get food, but at the time she was still on the bus and when she did decide, she seen 'em running out of the place and she stepped off to see what was going on and somebody told her to get back on the bus, but this highway patrol hollered at somebody else told get that one there, which was my mom and they took 'em to jail. -

Fannie

And I was beaten in jail 'til my body was just hard as metal. I'm suffering now with a blood clot in the artery to the left eye, and a permanent kidney injury on the right side. From the time that I began working, I never had a mind to stop but after that happened to me in Winona, then I knew that it wouldn't be anything would stop me other than death. -

Narrator

In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a racially integrated, pro-civil rights alternative to the state's secregated Democratic Party With the new party's support, Mrs. Hamer ran for Congress. Walked into the secretary of state's office and this white lady said, "What you niggers want?" Said, we looked at her and then Mrs. Hamer said, "Well, I want to run for Congress." And then she go back in there she says, "Hey, hey y'all!" Said, "There's two niggers out here "that said they want to run for Congress." Ten, fifteen eyes are now on us, you know? And so we're sturdy, standing there and so she come and put this pile of papers on the counter and said, "Fill these out." Fannie Lou and I go out into the corridor up there and fill out the papers, and bring them back. She says, "Okay this is okay, "but you need a cashier check $500 "made out to the Democratic Party Executive Committee." So we go out into the corridor to the phone booth, call the office in here and tell them that we need $500. They said don't move, stay there. Somebody will be there with the money, okay. Sit around a while, then a guy shows up with the check. We take the check into the office, give it to the lady, and start to leave. She said "Hold it, there's one more step." Said, "At the time the candidate qualifies, "the campaign manager has to sign these papers "and this is the last date to qualify. "It's four o'clock. "We're

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30, "and if you don't get this all in today, you're out of luck. "You won't be able to run." Fannie Lou Hamer looked at me and she said "Mac, go in there and put your name on them papers "and let's go home." I said, "Oh Mrs. Hamer, come on now you know I don't know "nothing in the world about being a campaign manager." She said, "Mac, you know as much "about being a campaign manager "as I know about running for Congress. "Put your name on the papers and let's go home." -

Narrator

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In August 1964, Mrs. Hamer was a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. There, as the nation watched, The Freedom Democrats demanded to be recognized as the only legitimate Democratic Party from Mississippi. Everybody knew that the state of Mississippi discriminated against black people, denied black people the right to vote. Everybody in the Democratic Party knew that the Democratic Party of Mississippi was an all-white and white-supremacist party. They weren't even loyal to the Democratic Party. They came to the Democratic Party's conventions supporting Barry Goldwater, the Republican. They weren't reaching any of the black folks really, 'cause we were carrying hundreds of people. We carried over a thousand people down there to make that application to register to vote. The right to vote was our whole reason for this but we had to now, since we wasn't getting any place in Mississippi, we needed to now make the national Democratic Party put pressure on the local delegation to be democratic. Our challenge before a credentials committee was to try to deny the credentials to the regular Democratic Party. And Mrs. Hamer spoke before the credentials committee in 1964 in Atlantic City to let the credentials committee know that the integrated delegation should be seated as opposed to the old white guard. And Mrs. Hamer was chosen to speak because of the fire that was in her spirit. Because of her articulation, and really because of her eyes. It wasn't too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a state highway patrolman, and he said we're going to make you wish you was dead. When you looked into Mrs. Hamer's eyes, you knew she meant business, you knew that she had been through a lot, and just her very presence commanded respect. -

Fannie

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I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The state highway patrolman ordered the first Negro to take the blackjack. The first Negro began to beat me, and I was beat by the first Negro until he was exhausted. I was told that there were people at that, on the credentials committee in tears when they listened to Mrs. Hamer tell her story. After the first Negro had beat me until he was exhausted, the state highway patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack. The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet and the state highway patrolman ordered the first Negro had beat to sit on my feet to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to hush. All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America? The land of the free and the home of the brave? Where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook because our lives are being threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America? Thank you. (applause) We thought we had the case won. We thought that we had come here and we were gonna get these, the National Democratic Party to say okay. With Mrs. Hamer's testimony, at that moment without knowing you know the kind of arm twisting that was going on in the background, the kind of threats being made by the White House, Lyndon Johnson's White House, it seemed as if, to me, there would be an actual vote permitted on whether or not to seat the MFDP and my feeling was that if you got that vote, a majority of the convention would vote to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. -

Narrator

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But behind the scenes, president Johnson and party leaders had no intention of allowing a vote by the full convention. Instead, they offered a compromise, allowing two members of the Mississippi Freedom Democrats to be recognized as delegates at large. So they offered us what they call a compromise of two seats at large, really representing nobody. Some had wanted to accept the compromise, and most of the SNCC people were saying no, and they take us off into a little meeting where they're separating us to try to persuade us to accept this compromise, and so and then, and then Mrs. Hamer standing up and you know just saying we shouldn't do this. We are not gonna do this, and then all of us, the delegates vote with her. So although at one level the challenge failed, that is to say that the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was not seated, at another level you have to acknowledge that the challenge changed the Democratic Party and in a sense changed the face of Democratic Party politics in the United States. -

Narrator

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Shortly after the convention, Fannie Lou Hamer joined fellow SNCC activists on a trip to Africa. She became really proud and more statesmanlike. You know she, I think she, when she saw these African people and they way their leadership there and she just kind of, just lifted her. -

Fannie

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It was just remarkable. You know I saw some of the most intelligent people, you know people because I had never in my life seen you know where black people running banks. I'd never seen nobody you know behind a counter in a bank. I had never seen nobody running, black running the government in my life. So it was quite a revelation to me. You know it was, because I was really learning something for the first time because then I could feel myself never ever being ashamed of my ancestors and my background. -

Narrator

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After the 1964 elections, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged the legitimacy of Mississippi's congressional delegation. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of three women who traveled to Washington to oppose the seating of five Mississippi congressman. For the opening vote, the black ladies are asked to stand and they gave them a seat finally in the back of the US House of Representatives. And that challenge allowed Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine to be the first black women to be seated on the House floor while the challenge was heard. -

Narrator

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Despite her role in the national Civil Rights Movement, Fannie Lou Hamer remained active in her local community. She starts doing the most practical kinds of things and telling people plant tomatoes. We are hungry, plant beans, plant okra. You know back then people didn't have food. Half the time didn't have clothes, and when she would go to different areas up north she would tell them you know that people down here in the south they needed clothes, they needed food, and they would send boxes and boxes and boxes of clothes. Our front porch would be stacked up with boxes of clothes. I'd watch this lady sit out in her front yard and peel peaches and pears and put them up in jars and give 'em away. -

Fannie

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We just thought you know if we had land to grow some stuff on, then it would be a help to us because living on the farm on some plantation, they still don't give you a place to grow stuff. So we founded Freedom Farms in 1969 and we grew our own vegetables you know butter beans, peas, okra, potatoes, peanuts, and then a cash crop. The plan of the thing is that it can grow to produce enough that people just won't know what hunger is. She had a component of that Freedom Farm called the pig bank where she was able, through the National Council of Negro Women, to accumulate some pigs. If a family came in and they were willing to take a piglet, and raise this piglet, and then when this piglet got grown and had pigs, they would bring a piglet back to the bank to replenish the bank so that she could give 'em to more people. Mrs. Hamer looked out for Ruleville, for Sunflower County, and she shared whatever earnings she received so often with people in the community. She would buy lots, so the house could be built on that lot. She believed that a family ought to have a house. They ought to have education, and they ought to have food and a job. -

Fannie

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I couldn't just afford to sit down and not do nothing, and I know something out there is happening you know, and I knew I could say something say you know this is not right and I'm going to get out here and we're going to do something about it. Indigenous leadership. You know part of them, and you think about a person running for Congress sitting out in the yard shelling peas. She was able to encourage us to keep on moving. She was able to inspire and encourage us from her own physical pain. And she will go down in history as one of the greatest folk leaders that this country has ever produced. She was an awesome person. Whether she was cooking, whether she was singing, or whether she was trying to take somebody to get somebody to go to the polls and register. But whatever she did, she did her part. And I say this, she was an awesome woman. I loved her, I still love her, I miss her. Can't get no better than that. -

Narrator

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Fannie Lou Hamer died on March 14, 1977. She was 59 years old. Her good friend Charles McLaurin arranged for her burial on land she owned. A few days before she passed away, I went to visit her and she said "Mac, promise me I will not be buried on a plantation. "I've been on a plantation all my life, "and I don't want to be buried on it." We have a commitment to keep her legacy alive. The statue was one way that she'd always be standing tall in the Delta. We set it up as high as it's sitting so that people who come to the statue will be looking up at her. This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine This little light of mine I'm gonna let it let it shine This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine