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We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we’d gotten here. We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired.

Fannie Lou Hamer

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Fannie Lou Hamer
Age: 59 †
Born: 1917
Born: October 6
Died: 1977
Died: March 14
Autobiographer
Political Leader
Politician
Montgomery County
Mississippi
Fannie Lou Townsend
Two
Come
Seats
Way
Gotten
Compromise
Tired
Cause
Causes
Didn

More quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer

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White Americans today don't know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that's where they made their mistake... they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa. We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold white people bo ught them white people changed their names my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?
Fannie Lou Hamer
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If I am truly free, who can tell me how much of my freedom I can have today?
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared [to register to vote] - but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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If this is a Great Society, I'd hate to see a bad one.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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Nobody's free until everybody's free.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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After we testified before the Credentials Committee in Atlantic City, their Mississippi representative testified also. He said I got 600 votes but when they made the count in Mississippi, I was told I had 388 votes. So actually it is no telling how many votes I actually got.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I used to question this for years - what did our kids actually fight for? They would go in the service and go through all of that and come right out to be drowned in a river in Mississippi. I found this hypocrisy is all over America.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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Hate won't only destroy us. It will destroy these people that's hating as well.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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In fact, one day I was going to Jackson and I saw a huge sign that U.S. Senator John Stennis was speaking that night for the White Citizens Council in Yazoo City and they also have a State Charter that they may set up for private schools. It is no secret.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that's what really happens.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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The methods used to take human lives, such as abortion, the pill, the ring, etc., amounts to genocide. I believe that legal abortion is legal murder.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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The Mississippi is not the only river. There's the Tallahatchie and the Big Black. People have been put in the river year after year, these things been happening.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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just because people are fat, it doesn't mean they are well fed. The cheapest foods are the fattening ones, not the most nourishing.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I see so many ways America uses to rob Negroes and it is sinful and America can't keep holding on, and doing these things.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I was treated much better in Africa than I was treated in America. And you see, often I get letters like this: Go back to Africa.
Fannie Lou Hamer