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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
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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
America
Back
Better
Much
Africa
Like
Treated
Letters
Often
More quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer
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
People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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
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
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
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
Black people know what white people mean when they say “law and order”.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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
... 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
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
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
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
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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
Nobody's free until everybody's free.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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
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
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
We didnt come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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
