Quote

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Speak
Others
Going
Liberate
Nobody

More quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer

Image
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
Image
In coming to Atlantic City, we believed strongly that we were right. In fact, it was just right for us to come to challenge the seating of the regular Democratic Party from Mississippi. But we didn't think when we got there that we would meet people, that actually the other leaders of the Movement would differ with what we felt was right.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
... some of my people could have been left [in Africa] and are living there. And I can't understand them and they don't know me and I don't know them because all we had was taken away from us. And I became kind of angry I felt the anger of why this had to happen to us. We were so stripped and robbed of our background, we wind up with nothing.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
Image
I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain't no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God's face.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
Image
This problem is not only in Mississippi. During the time I was in the Convention in Atlantic City, I didn't get any threats from Mississippi. The threatening letters were from Philadelphia, Chicago and other big cities.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
We serve God by serving our fellow man kids are suffering from malnutrition. People are going to the fields hungry. If you are a Christian, we are tired of being mistreated.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
Image
Nobody's free until everybody's free.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
No. What would I look like fighting for equality with the white man? I don't want to go down that low. I want the true democracy that'll raise me and that white man up raise America up.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
It's time for America to get right.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
Hate won't only destroy us. It will destroy these people that's hating as well.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
Actually, some of the things I experienced as a child still linger on what the white man has done to the black people in the south!
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
Image
I don't know about the press, but I know in the town where I live everybody was aware that I was in Africa, because I remember after I got back some of the people told me that Mayor Dura of our town said he just wished they would boil me in tar.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
America that is divided against itself cannot stand, and we cannot say we have all of this unity they say we have when black people are being discriminated against in every city in America I have visited.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
Image
A white man killed the mules and our cows that knocked us right back down. And things got so tough then I began to wish I was white.
Fannie Lou Hamer