Fannie Lou Hamer: Address in Harlem (1964)

Introduction

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-77) was an American voting and women’s rights activist and civil rights leader. The youngest of 20 children, she suffered polio as a young child. In this speech, she describes her own experience with the abuse of voting rights in Mississippi when she tried to register at 45 years of age. Her reference to January 4 is to the first day of the new Congress, when she and several hundred others will ask Congress not to seat the Mississippi delegation that had been elected when candidates from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party had been illegally kept off the ballot. Congress voted 277 to 148 to go ahead and seat their Mississippi colleagues. On August 6, President Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that would do much to reduce racial discrimination in voting.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

• What is your reaction to Hamer’s account of the beatings she and others endured at the command of the police for trying to register to vote? What is the power of this first-person testimonial?
• She suggests that the discrepancy between our ideal of equal freedom and the disguised and hidden facts of discrimination is a sickness: “And you know this whole society is sick.” Does “sick” seem accurate to you? Why or why not?
• Is she right in 1964 that “The truth is the only thing going to free us?” Would this still be true today? Why or why not?

I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired – Fannie Lou Hamer

• I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired – Dec. 20, 1964 | Archives of Women’s Political Communication

Source: Hamer, F. L. (1964, December 20). “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Archives of Women’s Political Communication, Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Iowa State University. https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired-dec-20-1964/