Fannie Hamer Quotes & Sayings

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who? — Darryl Pinckney

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

All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. 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? — Fannie Lou Hamer

[On her Freedom Farm Cooperative:] If you give a hungry man food, he will eat it. [But] if you give him land, he will grow his own food. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

Black people know what white people mean when they say "law and order". — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

If this is a Great Society, I'd hate to see a bad one. — Fannie Lou Hamer

When I looked at [Fannie Lou] Hamer and that speech it seemed to me that she had to be the bravest woman ever, to come before that body and to assert her rights, when she knew that she was going lose that battle. But she did it anyway, because she knew she was speaking not just for herself and for that day, but for me, and for all the other young women who were coming behind her. She didn't know our names, but she was working for us. I find that incredibly empowering. — Leah D. Daughtry

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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

When I liberate others, I liberate myself. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

Some people think that [it was] Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea to have a boycott. It was a black woman, a teacher, who said we should boycott the buses. You had people like Fannie Lou Hamer; Delta, Mississippi. — John Lewis

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

I just think of Fannie Lou Hamer, because even though she didn't know my name Ms. Hamer was thinking of me. I just want to do a good job, because I want her to look over that edge of heaven and say, "That's why I did it. That's why. I knew we had the capacity and the talent to be everything America says we can't be. All we needed was an open door." — Leah D. Daughtry

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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

That is part of why we must keep talking about Fannie Lou Hamer and about our history as a party and as a nation. We can't forget. If we forget, we can get self-righteous. We are great, but we had to grow into that greatness. Let's not forget that we shut people out. — Leah D. Daughtry

But you see now baby, whether you have a ph.d., d.d. or no d, we're in this bag together. And whether you are from Morehouse or Nohouse, we,re still in this bag together. — Fannie Lou Hamer

Whether you have a Ph.D., or no D, we're in this bag together. And whether you're from Morehouse or Nohouse, we're still in this bag together. 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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

Sometimes it seem 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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

Some of my people could have been left [in Africa] and are living there. And I can't understand them and they don't know me and I don't know them because all we had was taken away from us. And I became kind of angry; I felt the anger of why this had to happen to us. We were so stripped and robbed of our background, we wind up with nothing. — Fannie Lou Hamer

I feel sorry for anybody who would let hate wrap them up. Ain't no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God's face.
- Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer — Deborah Wiles

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

We are here to work side-by-side with this "black" man in trying to bring liberation to all our people! — Fannie Lou Hamer

You know I'm not hung up on this liberating myself from the "black" man - I'm not going to try that thing. — Fannie Lou Hamer

We didnt come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired, — Fannie Lou Hamer

When they asked for those to raise their hands who'd go down to the courthouse the next day, I raised mine. Had it high up as I could get it. I guess if I'd had any sense I'd've been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember. — Fannie Lou Hamer

It's time for America to get right. — Fannie Lou Hamer

There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people. — Fannie Lou Hamer

White Americans 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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

A black woman's body was never hers alone. — Fannie Lou Hamer

You don't have to like everybody, but you have to love everybody. — Fannie Lou Hamer

If I fall, I will fall five-feet four-inches forward in the fight for freedom. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

When I saw Fannie Lou Hamer speech I said, "Well, how did this Democratic Party that Miss Hamer is talking about, become the Democratic Party that now is the party of the African-American community?" — Leah D. Daughtry

Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

I will never forget, one day [when I] was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me, could I pick cotton.' I told him I didn't know and he said, Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store,' and he named things like crackerjacks and sardines--and it was a huge list that he called off. So I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again. My parents tried so hard to do what they could to keep us in school, but school didn't last four months out of the year and most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear. — Fannie Lou Hamer

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

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

Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable. — Fannie Lou Hamer

To support whatever is right, and to bring in justice where weve had so much injustice. — Fannie Lou Hamer

We serve God by serving our fellow man; kids are suffering from malnutrition. People are going to the fields hungry. If you are a Christian, we are tired of being mistreated. — Fannie Lou Hamer

I was just an infant when [Fannie Lou] Hamer spoke - barley even awake in the world. But here she was, pressing the Democratic Party to refuse to recognize the all-white Mississippi delegation, because obviously there was no way Mississippi could have an all-white delegation. Black people had been kept from registering through violence and intimidation. She had experienced that violence herself and was there to speak about it and to insist the delegation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party be recognized instead. — Leah D. Daughtry

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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

If I am truly free, who can tell me how much of my freedom I can have today? — Fannie Lou Hamer

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. — Fannie Lou Hamer

I am determined to get every Negro in the state of Mississippi registered. — Fannie Lou Hamer