– Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes –
Fannie’s civil rights activism began in August 1962. She answered a call by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for volunteers to challenge voter registration procedures that excluded African. Hope these Fannie Lou Hamer quotes to inspire you.
Fannie Lou Hamer Role in Civil Rights Movement
Fannie Lou Hamer was dedicated to the fight for civil rights, working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, made up mostly of African American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South.
Hamer helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was established in opposition to her state’s all-white delegation to that year’s Democratic convention, in 1964.
She brought the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the entire nation during a televised session at the convention. The next year, Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi, but she was unsuccessful in her bid. Along with her political activism.
Fannie Lou Cause of Death
Through her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement often left her in harm’s way, Fannie Lou Hamer did not relent in her fight for racial equality. Her spirit was unbowed, and her voice became more influential.
Fannie Lou Hamer died of breast cancer on March 14, 1977, aged 59, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Her memorial service was widely attended She was posthumously inducted into the in 1993.
Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
Hamer did not shy away from the dangers of challenging segregation and inspired almost everyone who encountered her. Her voice could not be ignored. Hopefully, the above quotes will help you find the courage to stand up for what you believe in.
1. Hate won’t only destroy us. It will destroy these people that are hating as well.
2. We want a change in this society in America because you see, we can no longer ignore the facts
3. Why should I leave , and why should I leave Mississippi? I go to the big city, and with the kind of education they give us in Mississippi, I got problems. I’d wind up in a soup line there.
4. I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.
5. One day, I know the struggle will change.
6. 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.
7. I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn’t go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn’t go back.
8. We want ours, and we want ours now.
9. 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.
10. All of this is on account we want to register to become first-class citizens, and if the is not seated now, I question America.
Fannie Lou Hamer Speech
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. If you give a hungry man food, he will eat it. [But] if you give him land, he will grow his own food.
14. I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.
15. When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.
16. To support whatever is right, and to bring injustice where we’ve had so much injustice.
17. When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out, ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.
18. 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.
19. Just because people are fat, it doesn’t mean they are well fed. The cheapest foods are the fattening ones, not the most nourishing.
20. We didn’t come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we’ve got here.
21. We didn’t come all this way for no two seats, ’cause all of us is tired.
Civil Rights Activist
22. 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.
23. We have in Sunflower County fourteen hundred children that we were able to get out of the ghettos, out of the country, and most of these children had never seen a commode in their lives.
24. What I really feel is necessary is that the black people in this country will have to upset this We can no longer ignore the fact that America is not the land of the free and the home of the brave.
25. We didn’t come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired.
26. If this is a Great Society, I’d hate to see a bad one.
27. Actually, the world and America are upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.
28. They talked about how it was our right as human beings to register and vote. I never knew we could vote before. Nobody ever told us.
29. There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.
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30. If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.
America Land
31. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?
32. I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.
33. I’m showing the people that a Negro can run for office.
34. so many things are under the cover that will have to be swept out and shown to this whole world, not just to America.
35. I’m showing the people that a can run for office.
36. It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us travelled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens. We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time.
37. I am determined to get every Negro in the state of Mississippi registered.
38. I had to leave, and my husband was forced to stay on this plantation until after the harvest season was over. And then the man that we had worked for, he’d taken the car, and the most of the few things we had been stolen.
39. 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.< /p>
Until I am Free Quotes
40. If I am truly free, who can tell me how much of my freedom I can have today?
41. That’s why I want to change Mississippi. You don’t run away from problems–you just face them.
42. Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
43. We want ours and we want ours now.
44. When I liberate others, I liberate myself.
45. If you don’t speak out ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.
46. 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.
47. If you are a Christian, we are tired of being mistreated
48. With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that’s what really happens.
49. 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.
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50. To support whatever is right, and to bring injustice where we’ve had so much injustice.
51. You don’t have to like everybody, but you have to love everybody.
52. I was treated much better in Africa than I was treated in America. And often I get letters like this: Go back to Africa.
Fannie Lou Hamer Famous Quotes
53. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?
54. Christianity is being concerned about [others], not building a million-dollar church while people are starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person, out there where it was happening. That’s what God is all about, and that’s where I get my strength.
55. There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.
56. You see if you are professional and if you are a nonprofessional, if you are not giving service to your fellow man, well, you can be as fancy-dressed as you want to be, but just don’t go to church because it’s no good. Because we are our brother’s keeper
57. 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.
58. Because a house divided against itself cannot stand and today America is divided against itself because they don’t want us to have even the ballot here in Mississippi.
59. I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain’t no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God’s face.
60. This thing they say of the land of the free and the home of the brave is all on paper.
61. For three hundred and more years they have had ‘time’, and now it is time for them to listen.
62. Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
63. Every red stripe in that flag represents the black man’s blood that has been shed.
64. It’s time for America to get right.
Tired of Being Treated Bad Quotes
65. To support whatever is right, and to bring justice where we’ve had so much injustice, that is what I fight for.
66. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
67. With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that’s what really happens.
68. today don’t know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that’s where they made their mistake, they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.
69. This thing they say of the land of the free and the home of the brave is all on paper.
70. 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…
71. 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.
72. These people in Mississippi State, they are not down; all they need is a chance.
73. If I am truly free, who can tell me how much of my freedom I can have today?
74. I have just as much right to stay in America – in fact, the black people have contributed more to America than any other race because our kids have fought here for what was called democracy.
75. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
76. That’s why I want to change Mississippi. You don’t run away from problems – you just face them.
77. I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up.
Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes on Voting Rights
78. Our rights or when is he going to give us good education for our children, or when is he going to give us jobs-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.
79. The only way we can make this thing of equality a reality in America is to do all we can to destroy this system and bring this out to the light that has been under the cover all these years.
80. We hadn’t heard anything about registering to vote because when you see this flat land in here, when the people would get out of the fields, if they had a radio, they’d be too tired to play it. So we didn’t know what was going on in the rest of the state, even, much less in other places.
81. I’d been in jail, and I’d been beaten. I had been to a voter registration workshop, you know, to – they were just training and teaching us how to register, to pass the literacy test.
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82. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings – in America?
83. Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.
Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
84. Whether you have a Ph.D. or no D, we’re in this bag together. And whether you’re from Morehouse or No house, we’re still in this bag together.
85. Not to fight to try to liberate ourselves from the men – this is another trick to get us fighting among ourselves – but to work together with the black man, then we will have a better chance to just act as human beings, and to be treated as human beings in our sick society.
86. They talked about how it was our right as human beings to register and vote. I never knew we could vote before. Nobody ever told us.
87. Eighteen hundred and seventy, the Fifteenth Amendment was added onto the Constitution of the United States that gave every man a chance to vote for what he think to be the right way
88. We are tired of being mistreated.
89. Sometimes it seems 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.
90. If this is a great society, I’d hate to see a bad one.
91. 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.
92. I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.
93. With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that’s what really happens.
National Women Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
94. A black woman’s body was never hers alone.
95. Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.
96. I know lots of people in who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.
97. I go to the big city, and with the kind of education they give us in Mississippi, I got problems.
98. There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.
99. I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn’t go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn’t go back.
100. If this is a great society, I’d hate to see a bad one. 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.
101. We have to build our own power. We have to win every single political office we can, where we have a majority of black people. The question for black people is not, when is the white man going to give us
102. We are here to work side-by-side with this black man in trying to bring to all our people! I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain’t no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God’s face.
103. 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.
104. Sin is beginning to reproach America today and we want what is rightfully ours.
More Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes
105. It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi? I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.
106. They [The American Government] can’t do that [Protect minorities], but when a white man is killed in the Congo, they send people there
107. They – you know, when we walked in – when I walked in with the two white men that had carried me down – and they cursed me all the way down. They would ask me questions, and when I would try to answer, they would tell me to hush.
108. 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 Songs
Fannie Lou Hamer was also popular for her songs. While fighting as a civil right activist she released a few songs, some of which her mother taught her while growing up. She also played major roles in some movies.
While Fannie Hamer was in her activist career, she was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot. None of these things ever deterred her from her work, until her sickness and death.
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StudentsandScholarship Team.
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