Best Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes About voting, Farming, You Can Pray, Sick and Tired, Justice, Death, Education, Success, Life & Transcript! Despite her humble beginnings in the Mississippi Delta, Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer came to popularity as one of the most critical, enthusiastic, and vital voices in the civil rights and voting rights movements and a leader in the fight for higher-income possibilities for African Americans. On October 6, 1917, Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi. When Hamer was just six years old, she began working with her family harvesting cotton.
In 1961, while undergoing surgical removal of a uterine tumor, Hamer was forced to have a hysterectomy by a white doctor who did not obtain her permission. In 1961, Hamer had a hysterectomy without her permission while having surgery to remove a tumor from her uterus. When Hamer went to a meeting with James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and James Forman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, they talked about how they were working to improve the lives of African Americans.
When people tried to keep Black people from voting, Hamer was furious. It happened in June 1963, Hamer and other Black women had successfully registered voters in South Carolina. They were arrested for sitting in a “whites-only” restaurant at a bus station in Winona, Mississippi. At the Democratic National Convention, Hamer and other (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party) (MFDP) members argued for their inclusion as an official delegation.
For Freedom Summer, Hamer helped organize hundreds of black and white college students to assist in registering African American voters. Her contributions to the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 were significant. Disillusioned with politics, Hamer turned to economics to achieve more equality for minorities. In 1968, she started a “pig bank” to give free pigs for Black farmers to keep, breed, and butcher. She passed away in 1977 from breast cancer.
Best Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
1. “If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
2. “If the white man gives you anything – just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
3. “One day, I know the struggle will change. There’s got to be a change – not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
4. “There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
5. “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
6. “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
7. “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
8. “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
9. “Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
10. “We want a change in this society in America because you see, we can no longer ignore the facts.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
11. “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
12. “This white man who is saying “it takes time.” For three hundred and more years they have had “time,” and now it is time for them to listen.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
13. “To support whatever is right, and to bring justice where we’ve had so much injustice.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
14. “If this is a great society, I’d hate to see a bad one.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
15. “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
16. “I’m showing the people that a Negro can run for office.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
17. “What I’m trying to point out now is when you take a very close look at this American society, it’s time to question these things.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
18. “That’s why I want to change Mississippi. You don’t run away from problems – you just face them.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
19. “I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
20. “Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
21. “When I liberate others, I liberate myself.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
22. “If you are a Christian, we are tired of being mistreated.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
23. “The type of education that we get in the state of Mississippi will make our minds so narrow it won’t coordinate with our big bodies.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
24. “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired.” –Fannie Lou Hamer
25. “We want ours, and we want ours now.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
