Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes

The freedmen were not really free in 1865, nor are most of their descendants really free in 1965. Slavery was but one aspect of a race and color problem that is still far from solution here, or anywhere. In America particularly, the grapes of wrath have not yet yielded all their bitter vintage.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

It's not easy to be a martyr in the field of race relations.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

The American system itself is incapable. It is as incapable of producing freedom for the Afro-American as the system of a chicken is of producing a duck egg.

The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the '60s: Independent fire!

The first thing I did [in Michigan] was join a picket line of a pizzeria in Ann Harbor in 1963 that didn't allow African Americans to eat there.

The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.

The only thing I really feel is necessary is that the black people, not only in Mississippi, will have to actually upset this applecart. What I mean by that is, so many things are under the cover that will have to be swept out and shown to this whole world, not just to America. This thing they say of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" is all on paper. It doesn't really mean anything to us. The only way we can make this thing 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.

That was exciting to be able to comment on civil rights. I mean, the civil rights movement that young people don't know about today, but Martin Luther King was considered by the establishment press in the early years of the sit-in movement as a dangerous man, and he was the equivalent at that time as Malcolm X. And he was told to stop his demonstrations; they were against the law and all of that. Now that he's sainted and sanctified we've forgotten.

When I first went to jail in 1960 with seven classmates trying to use their public library against the backdrop of my father being a veteran of World War II, not being able to use - having to sit behind Nazi on American military bases, I lost my fear of jails and death.

Southern attempts to deny blacks equal rights were turning the Constitution into a sublime and beautiful scripture—into a horrid charter of wrong.

Our duty is to fight! Then we can adjust the problems that remain in the life of the colored man.

The patter of their feet as they walk through Jim Crow barriers to attend school is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, and the world rocks beneath their tread.

If I wanted to fight to make a better world racially, I wouldn't be in the music business. You dig, if I were going to be a freedom fighter music is the wrong field.

Byrd, the former Klu [sic] Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states' rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days.

If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.

Are you looking for a Negro who won't fight back?

Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America. More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people. - Ta

Actually, some of the things I experienced as a child still linger on; what the white man has done to the black people in the south!

The Negro fought and bled and died in every war the white man waged, and he still won't give you justice. You nursed his baby and cleaned behind his wife, and he still won't give you freedom; you turned the other cheek while he lynched you and raped your women, but he still won't give you equality.

We blacks had problems in the '60s and we solved them by marching. We've still got problems - let's march.

One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin.

I don't sign for white people.