Davis W. Houck’s scientific contributions

In the late 1960s, black and white women were both inspired and disillusioned by the movements for social change. The centuries-long struggle for gender equality was reinvigorated by their experiences within civil rights, Black Power, and newly formed student organizations. Fannie Lou Hamer challenged core aspects of the women’s liberation movements, especially the feminists’ one-dimensional view of relations between the sexes and their stances on birth control and other aspects of reproductive rights. Hamer expressed her concerns in a speech delivered at the founding meeting of the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington, D.C. on July 10, 1971. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, in which she pays tribute to black women in Mississippi who “started the ball rolling” with regard to civil rights activism and to white women who recently “woke up” to white male patriarchal oppression. Hamer also talked about the Vietnam War, malnutrition in Mississippi, and the “dope” pandemic consuming the nation’s young people.

On January 29, 1976, Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a speech and responded to questions at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in celebration of the Measure for Measure’s eleventh anniversary. This chapter reproduced Hamer’s speech, in which she described the challenge that remained before both Mississippi and the nation and chastised political figures such as the mayor of Ruleville and President Gerald R. Ford. Hamer also challenged northern blacks in the audience who “think they have arrived” and denounced the hypocrisy of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations. Furthermore, she praised the South as an exemplar of interaction between the races and offered a fresh perspective on race relations. Little more than a year after she delivered this address, Hamer was admitted to a hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi and passed away on March 14, 1977 at the age of fifty-nine.

In 1971, Fannie Lou Hamer ran for the Mississippi Senate as an Independent against two-term Democratic incumbent Robert Crook, along with twelve other local black candidates, under the Concerned Citizens of Sunflower County to Elect Black Officials. However, Hamer and her fellow candidates all lost in the elections. On September 27, 1971, Hamer addressed an audience in Ruleville, Mississippi, to express her indignation. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, in which she also hoped of an interracial future and borrowed Malcolm X’s rhetoric, “the ballot or the bullet.” Hamer argued that racism would be dealt with by “men and government” or by “men and guns,” and while she favored the former, she did not rule out violence. Furthermore, she stressed that blacks and whites must work together to achieve racial harmony. Finally, she referred to James Forman’s “Black Manifesto,” a reparation plan for white churches amounting to $500 million, to emphasize the need for whites to aid blacks in economic development.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, affected the way Fannie Lou Hamer delivered her speeches. In the late 1960s, Hamer discarded personal narratives, in which she highlighted the cruelties and violence of Mississippi’s white supremacist culture, in favor of new rhetorical strategies and tactics for bureaucratic and electoral ends. In early 1967, Hamer spoke at a chapter meeting of the National Council of Negro Women in Mississippi. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, in which she continues to criticize the educated middle-class blacks’ alliances with “chicken-eating” black ministers and white power brokers. Hamer specifically attacked the Sunflower County Progress Inc., a coalition of moderate blacks and whites that sought to attract Head Start monies from the federal government and would compete directly with the Child Development Group of Mississippi, with whom Hamer was aligned.

In early September 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at a mass meeting held in Indianola, Mississippi. Mass meetings, the format of which resembles that of a church service, featured religious sermons, freedom songs, and secular speeches and were a vital part of the black freedom movement’s grassroots contingent. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, in which she encouraged the blacks of Mississippi to register and vote despite the risks by adopting two interrelated personae: that of a preacher and of a fellow community member. She challenged her audience to overcome their fears and realize their potential for activism.

On June 9, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer, along with five other companions, while traveling back to the Mississippi Delta after a week-long voter education workshop in Charleston, South Carolina, were arrested by Winona and Montgomery County officials, who were not keen on heeding the 1961 Interstate Commerce Commission ruling that effectively integrated interstate travel. In the local jailhouse, two black prisoners—Sol Poe and Roosevelt Knox—beat up Hamer. The beating, according to Hamer, was provoked by her civil rights activism back home in Ruleville. The Justice Department took an interest in the case and eventually filed suit against William Surrell, John L. Basinger, Earle Wayne Patridge, Thomas J. Herod, Jr., and Charles Thomas Perkins. As the star witness, Hamer testified in Oxford on December 2, 1963. Despite her testimony and the damning evidence provided by her travel companions, the accused were acquitted by the twelve-member all-white and all-male jury. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s federal trial testimony in Oxford.

In the summer of 1968, Fannie Lou Hamer addressed a predominantly white audience in Kentucky in which she shared her first attempt at voter registration. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s speech, which highlighted both the absurd arbitrariness of Jim Crow justice and the potentially lethal consequences of expressing one’s citizenship rights in the Mississippi Delta. Hamer also talked about her nationally prominent roles at Atlantic City in 1964 and her attempts to win a congressional seat in 1965, as well as the murder of Emmett Till. Furthermore, she called for interracial unity and defended the ideal of integration from the erroneous attacks of its detractors.

Most people who have heard of Fannie Lou Hamer are aware of the testimony that this Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights activist delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Far fewer are familiar with the speeches she delivered at the 1968 and 1972 conventions, to say nothing of addresses she gave closer to home, or with Malcolm X in Harlem, or even at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Until now, dozens of Hamer’s speeches have been buried in archival collections and in the basements of movement veterans. This book presents twenty-one of Hamer’s most important speeches and testimonies. It includes speeches from the better part of her fifteen-year activist career delivered in response to occasions as distinct as a Vietnam War Moratorium Rally in Berkeley, California, and a summons to testify in a Mississippi courtroom. The book includes brief critical descriptions that place Hamer’s words in context. The book also includes the last full-length oral history interview she granted, a recent oral history interview with Hamer’s daughter, as well as a bibliography of additional primary and secondary sources. The book demonstrates that there is still much to learn about and from this valiant black freedom movement activist.

Founded in April 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) sought to show that the blacks of Mississippi would be willing to vote if given the opportunity. Knowing that the white power structure would deny blacks that opportunity, the MFDP selected their own delegates, from the precinct level up to the state convention held on August 5, in Jackson. The MFDP delegation arrived in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 21 for the Democratic Party’s National Convention. The following day, Fannie Lou Hamer testified before the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s testimony, in which she recounts her first attempt to register to vote, her employer’s angry reaction and the violence that ensued, and her brutal beating inside a jail in Winona, Mississippi. Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration offered the MFDP delegation two at-large seats for Aaron Henry and Edwin King, which the party rejected.

Soon after the 1964 Democratic National Convention, an interracial coalition of Mississippi politicians including Pat Derian, Hodding Carter III, and Charles Evers came together to ensure that the 1968 challenge to seat an integrated delegation from their state would be successful. The group, known as the Loyal Democrats of Mississippi, realized their goal by strictly adhering to the national Democratic Party’s guidelines and by securing a broad base of support from local branches of the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the Black Mississippi Teachers Association, and the Black Prince Hall Masons. Many original members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party initially refused to join the Loyalist coalition, but eventually did in the face of dwindling resources and waning support. On May 22, 1969, Fannie Lou Hamer testified before the Democratic Reform Committee in Jackson, Mississippi. This chapter reproduces Hamer’s testimony, in which she expressed her disappointment with the Democratic Party while offering suggestions as to how it could improve.