Quote

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

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
Problem
Conventions
Time
Chicago
Letters
Atlantic
Threat
Philadelphia
City
Mississippi
Cities
Convention
Bigs
Threats
Didn
Threatening

More quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer

Image
Black people know what white people mean when they say “law and order”.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
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
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
Image
But you see now baby, whether you have a ph.d., d.d. or no d, we're in this bag together. And whether you are from Morehouse or Nohouse, we,re still in this bag together.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
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
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
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
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
I am determined to get every Negro in the state of Mississippi registered.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
If this is a Great Society, I'd hate to see a bad one.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Image
It's time for America to get right.
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
... 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
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
These people in Mississippi State, they are not down all they need is a chance. And I am determined to give my part not for what the Movement can do for me, but what I can do for the Movement to bring about a change in the State of Mississippi.
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
Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.
Fannie Lou Hamer