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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
Much
Like
Africa
Treated
Letters
Often
America
Back
Better

More quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer

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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
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We didnt come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired.
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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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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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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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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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
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I am determined to get every Negro in the state of Mississippi registered.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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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
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It would bring tears in your eyes to make you think of all those years, the type of brain-washing that this man will use in America to keep us separated from our own people.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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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
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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
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It is our right to stay here and we will stay and stand up for what belongs to us as American citizens, because they can't say that we haven't had patience.
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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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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Black people know what white people mean when they say “law and order”.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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Nobody's free until everybody's free.
Fannie Lou Hamer
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I would like to talk about some of the things that happened that made me know that there was something wrong in the south from a child.
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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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