{"id":1704,"date":"2019-08-01T09:19:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1704"},"modified":"2019-08-01T09:19:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:19:20","slug":"fannie-lou-hamer-testimony-at-the-democratic-national-convention-1964","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/27-the-sixties\/fannie-lou-hamer-testimony-at-the-democratic-national-convention-1964\/","title":{"rendered":"Fannie Lou Hamer: Testimony at the Democratic National Convention 1964"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Civil rights\nactivists struggled against the repressive violence of Mississippi\u2019s racial\nregime. State NAACP head Medger Evers was murdered in 1963. Freedom Summer activists\ntried to register black voters in 1964. Three disappeared and were found\nmurdered. The Mississippi Democratic Party continued to disfranchise the state\u2019s\nAfrican American voters. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer co-founded the\nMississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and traveled to the Democratic National\nConvention in 1964 to demand that the MFDP\u2019s delegates, rather than the\nall-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegates, be seated in the convention. Although\nunsuccessful, her moving testimony was broadcast on national television and\ndrew further attention to the plight of African Americans in the South.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Chairman, and the Credentials Committee, my name is\nMrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville,\nMississippi, Sunflower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and\nSenator Stennis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the 31st of August in 1962 that 18 of us traveled twenty-six\nmiles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to try to become\nfirst-class citizens. We was met in Indianola by Mississippi men, highway\npatrolmens, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the\ntime. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held\nup by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to\nIndianola, where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the\nwrong color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to\nRuleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area\nwhere I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was\nmet there by my children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry because\nI had gone down to try to register.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After they told me, my husband came, and said that the\nplantation owner was raising cain because I had tried to register, and before\nhe quit talking the plantation owner came, and said, \u201cFannie Lou, do you\nknow\u2014did Pap tell you what I said?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I said, \u201cyes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said, \u201cI mean that,\u201d he said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t go down and\nwithdraw your registration, you will have to leave,\u201d said, \u201cThen if you go down\nand withdraw,\u201d he said, \u201cYou will\u2014you might have to go because we are not ready\nfor that in Mississippi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I addressed him and told him and said, \u201cI didn\u2019t try to\nregister for you. I tried to register for myself.\u201d I had to leave that same\nnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 10th of September, 1962, sixteen bullets was fired\ninto the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls\nwere shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. Joe McDonald\u2019s house was shot in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter\nregistration workshop, was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was\ntraveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to Winona, Mississippi,\nwhich is in Montgomery County, four of the people got off to use the washroom,\nand two of the people\u2014to use the restaurant\u2014two of the people wanted to use the\nwashroom. The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered\nout. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window\nand saw they had rushed out, I got off of the bus to see what had happened, and\none of the ladies said, \u201cIt was a State Highway Patrolman and a chief of police\nordered us out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the\nwashroom got back on the bus, too. As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw\nwhen they began to get the four people in a highway patrolman\u2019s car. I stepped\noff of the bus to see what was happening and somebody screamed from the car\nthat the four workers was in and said, \u201cGet that one there,\u201d and when I went to\nget in the car, when the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking\nroom. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in\ncells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss Euvester Simpson.\nAfter I was placed in the cell I began to hear the sound of kicks and horrible\nscreams, and I could hear somebody say, \u201cCan you say, yes sir, nigger? Can you\nsay yes, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they would say other horrible names. She would say, \u201cYes,\nI can say yes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo say it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says, \u201cI don\u2019t know you well enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They beat her, I don\u2019t know how long, and after a while she\nbegan to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn\u2019t too long before three white men came to my\ncell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he asked me where I was\nfrom, and I told him Ruleville, he said, \u201cWe are going to check this.\u201d And they\nleft my cell and it wasn\u2019t too long before they came back. He said, \u201cYou are\nfrom Ruleville all right,\u201d and he used a curse wod, and he said, \u201cWe are going\nto make you wish you was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they\nhad two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered the first Negro to\ntake the blackjack. The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the\nState Highway Patrolman for me, to lay down on a bunk bed on my face, and I\nlaid on my face. The first Negro began to beat, and I was beat by the first\nNegro until he was exhausted, and I was holding my hands behind me at that time\non my left side because I suffered from polio when I was six years old. After\nthe first Negro had beat until he was exhausted the State Highway Patrolman\nordered the second Negro to take the blackjack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet,\nand the State Highway Patrolman ordered the first Negro who had beat to set on\nmy feet to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man\ngot up and began to beat me my head and told me to hush. One white man\u2014my dress\nhad worked up high, he walked over and pulled my dress down\u2014and he pulled my\ndress back, back up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this is on account we want to register, to become\nfirst-class citizens, and if the freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I\nquestion America, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave\nwhere we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives\nbe threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Fannie Lou Hamer, Speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. August 22, 1964. Available online via Mississippi Department of Archives and History (https:\/\/www.mdah.ms.gov\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Lesson-Five-Mississippi-in-1964-A-Turning-Point.pdf<\/a>)

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civil rights activists struggled against the repressive violence of Mississippi\u2019s racial regime. State NAACP head Medger Evers was murdered in 1963. Freedom Summer activists tried to register black voters in 1964. Three disappeared and were found murdered. The Mississippi Democratic Party continued to disfranchise the state\u2019s African American voters. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":818,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1704","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1705,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1704\/revisions\/1705"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}