Hitchhiker's Guide to Religion
Black Church

Fannie Lou Hamer

The Voice of the Mississippi Delta

Black Church Voter registration, sharecropper organizing, prophetic witness from the bottom of the American class structure
Attribute Value
Combat
ATK 85
DEF 88
SPR 99
SPD 70
INT 92
Rank Civil Rights organizer / SNCC field secretary / Co-founder, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Domain Voter registration, sharecropper organizing, prophetic witness from the bottom of the American class structure
Alignment Holy / Grassroots
Weakness Survived a 1963 jailhouse beating in Winona, Mississippi, that left her with permanent kidney damage. Forcibly sterilized without consent in 1961 (a "Mississippi appendectomy"). Died in 1977 of cancer and the cumulative effects of state violence
Key Act Born 1917, twentieth child of Mississippi sharecroppers. Lost her job and her home for trying to register to vote in 1962. Joined SNCC. Helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Delivered the speech to the credentials committee at the 1964 Democratic National Convention -- "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" -- that LBJ tried to preempt with a hastily called press conference. Sang the spirituals into the microphone of American politics
Source Kay Mills, *This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer* (1993); Hamer's collected speeches

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” — Fannie Lou Hamer, Democratic National Convention, August 22, 1964


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