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 More Quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer More Quotes From Fannie Lou Hamer You know what really made me sick? I was in Washington, D.C. at another time reading in a paper where the U.S. gives Byron de la Beckwith - the man who is charged with murdering Medgar Evers - they were giving him so much money for some land and I ask "Is this America?" We can no longer ignore the fact that America is NOT the "land of the free and the home of the brave." Fannie Lou Hamer reading home men 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 white-man men children 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 fighting kids years I saw how the Government was run there [in Africa] and I saw where black people were running the banks. I saw, for the first time in my life, a black stewardess walking through a plane and that was quite an inspiration for me. Fannie Lou Hamer government inspiration running 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 white-man fighting men You know the Scripture says "be not deceived for God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sow that shall he also reap." And one day, I don't know how they're going to get it, but they're going to get some of it back. They are scared to death and are more afraid now than we are. Fannie Lou Hamer scripture one-day men You can tell this by the program the federal government had to train 2,400 tractor drivers. They would have trained Negro and white together, but this man, Congressman Jamie Whitten, voted against it and everything that was decent. So, we've got to have somebody in Washington who is concerned about the people of Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer white men people We worked all the time, just worked and then we would be hungry and my mother was clearing up a new ground trying to help feed us for $1.25 a day. She was using an axe, just like a man, and something flew up and hit her in her eye. It eventually caused her to lose both of her eyes and I began to get sicker and sicker of the system there. I used to see my mother wear clothes that would have so many patches on them, they had been done over and over and over again. She would do that but she would try to keep us decent. Fannie Lou Hamer eye mother men 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 atlantic-city vote cities 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 pills abortion believe My parents tried so hard to do what they could to keep us in school, but school didn't last but four months out of the year and most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear. Fannie Lou Hamer clothes years school 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 treated letters america When I got on that plane, it was loaded with white people going to Africa for the Peace Corps. I got there and met a lot of them, and actually they had more peace there in Guinea than I have here. I talked to some of them. I told them before they would be able to clean up somebody else's house you would have to clean up yours; before they can tell somebody else how to run their country, why don't they do something here. Fannie Lou Hamer white running country The only thing we took out was the Constitution of the State of Mississippi and the interpretation of the Constitution. We had 63,000 people registered on the Freedom Registration form. And we tried from every level to go into the regular Democratic Party medium. We tried from the precinct level. The 16th of June when they were holding precinct meetings all across the state, I was there and there was eight of us there to attend the meeting, and they had the door locked at 10 o'clock in the morning. This is what's happening in the State of Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer party june morning 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 giving people needs My mother got down sick in 53 and she lived with me, an invalid, until she passed away in 1961. And during the time she was staying with me sometime I would be worked so hard I couldn't sleep at night. Fannie Lou Hamer mother sleep night I went almost naked to see that my mother was kept decent and treated as a human being for the first time in all of her life. Fannie Lou Hamer naked mother firsts 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 rivers people years My parents would make huge crops of sometimes 55 to 60 bales of cotton. Being from a big family where there were 20 children, it wasn't too hard to pick that much cotton. But my father, year after year, didn't get too much money and I remember he just kept going. Fannie Lou Hamer father children years 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 towns remember people
