- [Fannie] By the
time I was 10 or 12, I just wished to God
I was white you know because they had
food to eat, they didn't work,
they had money, they had nice homes and
we would nearly freeze, we never had food, we
worked all the time, and didn't have nothing. (emotional music) - And we all lived on
D. Marlow's plantation, and Fannie Lou worked on
the D. Marlow's plantation. She worked there like 18 years. - The persons who worked
on the plantations, the sharecroppers, could not
leave on his or her free will. I call it neo-slavery because
it was in fact slavery. - Mrs. Hamer she was 44
years old and had never lived any place but on a plantation,
so she wanted to go. I mean they were
hostages really. You know they couldn't leave without approval of
the plantation owner, and they didn't get much money so they didn't have a lot
of money to run away with. All of what they had accumulated was taken away from
them by an overseer, a white overseer
on the plantation who poisoned their mules
and destroyed their crops, and disabled their automobiles. But Mrs. Hamer, she was
a very determined person and she had been
trying all her life to get away from the plantation. - [Narrator] The direction
of Fannie Lou Hamer's life changed in August 1962 when the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee,
or SNCC, held a public meeting
in nearby Ruleville. - I can remember in 1962 this lady named Mary Tucker. She and my mom was
best of friends, and she told my moms that
they was having a mass meeting at William Chapel Church. And she asked my mom
did she want to come? - [Fannie] And they talked
about how it was all right that we could register to vote. And they was talking about
we could vote out people that we didn't want in office. I'd never heard until
1962 that black people could register to vote. - And you can understand why
you got 70% of the population of the whole county,
black, and then you got nothing but white
people in office. - [Fannie] So then they
asked who would go down on Friday, which was the 31st to try and register. So I went down, I
was one of the person that said I would go. - And people were really
nervous about this trip to try and register to vote, a hostile act directed
at white supremacy. - I was on the bus,
and everybody on there was afraid, even myself. White men in trucks
were driving by, waving guns, and
yelling you know obscenities at us, and so
these people on the bus were kind of upset and Fannie
Lou Hamer started to sing. ♪ This little light of mine ♪ I'm gonna let it shine - She began to sing
"This Little Light," and people calmed down
and were ready to face whatever they had to face. ♪ This little light of mine - And just with
the power of her voice, was clear that she
was easing the fear. ♪ Let it shine - Well it didn't take
long for the registrar and other people to shut down
the circuit clerk's office where you went to
register to vote. And so now people
had to go back home. - When they was on
their way back home they got stopped by
the highway patrol, and the reason they got stopped highway patrol told 'em that the bus was too yellow. You riding a school bus, what
other color it's gonna be? Before she made it home,
quite naturally the registrar called D. Marlow
and letting him know that Fannie Lou was down there
trying to register to vote. - [Fannie] And the
land owner drove up, he said you'll have to go down and withdraw your registration or you will have to
leave this place. And I didn't call myself saying something smart, but
I couldn't understand it and I also didn't
know the way I could and told him that I didn't go
down there to register for him I went down there to
register for myself. - And he said that
well you'll have to go, and so he pulled away and she went back
into the house, and after she and
her family met, had a little meeting to decide
what they were gonna do, she would leave her husband
and her two daughters on the plantation and
that she would leave so that they could
bring in the crop so that they wouldn't owe the
plantation owner any money. - Daddy took Mama to
Miss Mary Tucker's house. On the tenth of
September of 1962, my daddy felt some kind of way
that Mama wasn't safe there, so we all got together,
packed up some clothes, and he got my mom and took
her to Sumner, Mississippi. - [Narrator] Mr. Hamer's
premonition was accurate. That very night, the
Tucker house was attacked. - [Fannie] The tenth
of September is when they shot in that house 16
times, you know to kill me. - [Narrator] On the bus
trip to register to vote, Mrs. Hamer had caught the eye
of civil rights organizers who then wanted her to attend a SNCC conference in Nashville. - Bob Moses called
me and told me to go and find the lady who
did the singing on the bus. I found her up in
Tallahatchie County in a little shack,
plantation shack, and I walk into the room
there's this wingback chair with the back to the door, and a potbelly stove, coal burning red, and I said Bob Moses sent me to
get Fannie Lou Hamer and she stood up and said
"I'm Fannie Lou Hamer." I mean, ready to go. I mean didn't know if I
was a kidnapper or what. You know, never
thought about that. - She left with him, and that woman been
traveling ever since. - Mrs. Hamer's presence at
the 1962 SNCC conference in Nashville where you could see for the first time,
you know a local person from Mississippi
reflecting exactly what you wanted to find
in the rural south. It becomes clear we're dealing
with somebody different. This is no submissive,
docile, servile, sharecropper. This is a woman of
considerable strength. - When she stepped
forward, I don't think anyone at SNCC realized
how strong she was and she may not have
realized how strong she was. - And so Fannie Lou Hamer was just what we had
been looking for. 'Cause she didn't wait around. I mean she just got right
to work continuously canvasing communities
and encouraging people to go to the courthouse. - She said 'cause
voting is your voice. You know to decide on who
you want to represent you, or who you want to
be your president. - [Narrator] On June 9,
1963, Fannie Lou Hamer was returning by bus from a voter registration
conference in South Carolina. - They stopped in
Winona, Mississippi and some of them wanted
to use the bathroom, some of them wanted to get food, but at the time she
was still on the bus and when she did decide, she seen 'em running
out of the place and she stepped off to
see what was going on and somebody told her
to get back on the bus, but this highway patrol
hollered at somebody else told get that one
there, which was my mom and they took 'em to jail. - [Fannie] And I
was beaten in jail 'til my body was
just hard as metal. I'm suffering now
with a blood clot in the artery to the left eye, and a permanent kidney
injury on the right side. From the time that
I began working, I never had a mind to stop but after that happened
to me in Winona, then I knew that it wouldn't be anything would stop
me other than death. - [Narrator] In 1964,
as a founder of the new Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, Fannie Lou Hamer
ran for Congress. - Walked into the
secretary of state's office and this white lady said,
"What you niggers want?" Said, we looked at her
and then Mrs. Hamer said, "Well, I want to
run for Congress." And she's surprised. She looked at us and
then she go back in there she says, "Hey, hey y'all!" Said, "There's two
niggers out here "that said they want
to run for Congress." 10, 15 eyes are now
on us, you know? And so we started standing there and so she come and put this
pile of papers on the counter and said, "Fill these out." Fannie Lou and I go out
into the corridor up there and fill out the papers,
and bring them back. She says, "Okay this is okay, "but you need a
cashier check $500 "made out to the Democratic
Party Executive Committee." So we go out into the
corridor to the phone booth, call the office in
here and tell them that we need $500. They said don't
move, stay there. Somebody will be there
with the money, okay. Sit around a while, then a
guy shows up with the check. We take the check
into the office, give it to the lady,
and start to leave. She said "Hold it,
there's one more step." Said, "At the time the
candidate qualifies, "the campaign manager
has to sign these papers "and this is
the last date to qualify. "It's four o'clock. "We're going to shut
this down at 4:30, "and if you don't get this all
in today, you're out of luck. "You won't be able to run." Fannie Lou Hamer looked
at me and she said "Mac, go in there and put
your name on them papers "and let's go home." I said, "Oh Mrs. Hamer, come
on now you know I don't know "nothing in the world about
being a campaign manager." She said, "Mac, you know as much "about being a campaign manager "as I know about
running for Congress. "Put your name on the
papers and let's go home." - [Narrator] In August
1964, Mrs. Hamer was a member of the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party's delegation to the Democratic National Convention
in Atlantic City. - Everybody knew that
the state of Mississippi discriminated
against black people, denied black people
the right to vote. Everybody in the
Democratic Party knew that the Democratic
Party of Mississippi was an all white and
white supremacist party. They weren't even loyal
to the Democratic Party. They came to the Democratic
Party's conventions supporting Barry
Goldwater, the Republican. - They weren't reaching any
of the black folks really, 'cause we were carrying
hundreds of people. We carried over a
thousand people down there to make that application
to register to vote. The right to vote was
our whole reason for this but we had to now, since
we wasn't getting any place in Mississippi, we needed to now make the national
Democratic Party put pressure on the
local delegation to be democratic. Our challenge before a
credentials committee was to try to deny
the credentials to the regular Democratic Party. - And Mrs. Hamer spoke before
the credentials committee in 1964 in
Atlantic City to let the credentials committee
know that the integrated delegation
should be seated as opposed to the
old white guard. And Mrs. Hamer was
chosen to speak because of the fire
that was in her spirit. Because of her articulation, and really because of her eyes. - It wasn't too long
before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a
state highway patrolman, and he said we're going to
make you wish you was dead. - When you looked into
Mrs. Hamer's eyes, you knew she meant business, you knew that she had
been through a lot, and just her very presence
commanded respect. - [Fannie] I was carried out
of that cell into another cell where they had two
Negro prisoners. The state highway patrolman
ordered the first Negro to take the blackjack. The first Negro
began to beat me, and I was beat by the first
Negro until he was exhausted. - I was told that there
were people at that, on the credentials
committee in tears when they listened to
Mrs. Hamer tell her story. - After the first Negro had
beat me until he was exhausted, the state highway patrolman
ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack. The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet and the state highway patrolman
ordered the first Negro had beat to sit on my feet to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream
and one white man got up and began to
beat me in my head and tell me to hush. All of this is on account
of we want to register, 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 hook because our lives are
being threatened daily, because we want to live as
decent human beings in America? Thank you. (applause) - We thought we
had the case won. We thought that we had come here and we were gonna get these, the National Democratic
Party to say okay. - With Mrs. Hamer's
testimony, at that moment without knowing you know
the kind of arm twisting that was going on in the
background, the kind of threats being made by the White House, Lyndon Johnson's White
House, it seemed as if, to me, there would be
an actual vote permitted on whether or not
to seat the MFDP and my feeling was that
if you got that vote, a majority of the convention would vote to seat the
Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party. - [Narrator] But
behind the scenes, president Johnson
and party leaders had no intention of allowing
a vote by the full convention. Instead, they
offered a compromise, allowing two members of the Mississippi
Freedom Democrats to be recognized as
delegates at large. - So they offered us what
they call a compromise of two seats at large,
really representing nobody. Some had wanted to
accept the compromise, and most of the SNCC
people were saying no, and they take us off
into a little meeting where they're separating
us to try to persuade us to accept this compromise, and so and then, and then Mrs. Hamer
standing up and you know just saying we
shouldn't do this. We are not gonna do
this, and then all of us, the delegates vote with her. - So although at one level
the challenge failed, that is to say that the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party was not seated, at another level you
have to acknowledge that the challenge changed
the Democratic Party and in a sense changed the face
of Democratic Party politics in the United States. - [Narrator] Shortly
after the convention, Fannie Lou Hamer joined
fellow SNCC activists on a trip to Africa. - She became really proud
and more statesmanlike. You know she, I think she, when she saw these
African people and they way their
leadership there and she just kind
of, just lifted her. - [Fannie] It was
just remarkable. You know I saw some of the
most intelligent people, you know people because
I had never in my life seen you know where black
people running banks. I'd never seen nobody you know
behind a counter in a bank. I had never seen nobody running, black running the
government in my life so it was quite a
revelation to me. You know it was, because I
was really learning something for the first time because
then I could feel myself never ever being ashamed of my
ancestors and my background. - [Narrator] After
the 1964 elections, the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party challenged the legitimacy
of Mississippi's congressional delegation. Fannie Lou Hamer was
one of three women who traveled to Washington
to oppose the seating of five Mississippi congressman. - For the opening
vote, the black ladies are asked to stand and they
gave them a seat finally in the back of the US
House of Representatives. - And that challenge
allowed Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine
to be the first black women to be seated on the House floor while the challenge were heard. - [Narrator] Despite her role
in the national civil rights movement,
Fannie Lou Hamer remained active in
her local community. - She starts doing the most
practical kinds of things and telling people
plant tomatoes. We are hungry, plant
beans, plant okra. - You know back then people didn't have food. Half the time
didn't have clothes, and when she would go to
different areas up north she would tell them you
know that people down here in the south they
needed clothes, they needed food,
and they would send boxes and boxes and
boxes of clothes. Our front porch
would be stacked up with boxes of clothes. - I'd watch this lady
sit out in her front yard and peel peaches and pears and put them up in jars and give 'em away. - [Fannie] We just thought
you know if we had land to grow some stuff on, then
it would be a help to us because living on the
farm on some plantation, they still give you a
place to grow stuff, so we founded
Freedom Farms in 1969 and we grew our own vegetables you know butter beans, peas,
okra, potatoes, peanuts, and then a cash crop. The plan of the thing
is that it can grow to produce enough that people just won't
know what hunger is. - She had a component
of that Freedom Farm called the pig bank, where she was able through the National Council of Negro Women, to accumulate some pigs. If a family came in
and they were willing to take a piglet, and
raise this piglet, and then when this
piglet got grown and had pigs, they
would bring a piglet back to the bank to
replenish the bank so that she could give
'em to more people. - Mrs. Hamer looked out for
Ruleville, for Sunflower County, and she shared whatever
earnings she received so often with people
in the community. - She would buy
lots, so the house could be built on that lot. - She believed that a family ought to have a house. They ought to have education, and they ought to have food and a job. - [Fannie] I couldn't
just afford to sit down and not do nothing,
and I know something out there is happening you know, and I knew I could say something say you know this is not right and I'm going to get out here and we're going to do
something about it. - Indigenous leadership. You know part of them, and you think about a
person running for Congress sitting out in the
yard shelling peas. - She was able to encourage
us to keep on moving. She was able to inspire
and encourage us from her own physical pain. - And she will go
down in history as one of the
greatest folk leaders that this country
has ever produced. - She was an awesome person. Whether she was cooking, whether she was singing, or whether she was
trying to take somebody to get somebody to go to
the polls and register. But whatever she did,
she did her part. And I say this, she
was an awesome woman. I loved her, I still love her, I miss her. Can't get no better than that. - [Narrator] Fannie Lou
Hamer died on March 14, 1977. She was 59 years old. Her good friend
Charles McLaurin arranged for her burial on
land she owned. - The reason she's buried
where she's buried is that a few days
before she passed away, and I went to visit
her and she said "Mac, promise me I will not
be buried on a plantation. "I've been on a
plantation all my life, "and I don't want
to be buried on it." We have a commitment to keep her legacy alive. The statue was one
way that she'd always be standing tall in the Delta. We set it up as
high as it's sitting so that people who
come to the statue will be looking up at her. ♪ This little light of mine ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ This little light of mine ♪ I'm gonna let it let it shine ♪ This little light of mine ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ Let it shine, let
it shine, let it shine ♪
