Whether every eligible citizen can vote and have their vote be counted is still an open question in this election, said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who is speaking Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
WATCH MORE: A look back at the 1968 Democratic convention and its relevance today Hamer has already been the subject of appreciation this week, as the Democrats’ convention began Monday.
With Mississippi conducting whites-only primaries, activists formed the racially integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to confront leading Democrats on a national stage.
“If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America,” Hamer told the credentials committee.
Top Democrats said Hamer’s group could seat two delegates, but that was too little for the Freedom Democrats.
WATCH MORE: Second gentleman Doug Emhoff speaks at 2024 Democratic National Convention Leslie-Burl McLemore was one of the Freedom delegates and recalls how determined they were.
On Tuesday, the first Mississippi Freedom Trail marker outside the state was unveiled in Atlantic City to commemorate the Freedom Democrats.
The Freedom Democrats helped lead the way to President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and now to Harris’ nomination, Dennis said.
Jackson, Miss. (AP) — On Thursday, precisely 60 years after a different Black woman captivated the country with a televised speech questioning Mississippi’s all-white delegation’s seating at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris will accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
In Atlantic City, New Jersey, Fannie Lou Hamer gave a sharp and direct testimony to the credentials committee.
She talked about how she was beaten in jail for pushing other Black people to stand up for their rights and how she was fired from her plantation job in retaliation for trying to register to vote. She described other unconstitutional tactics used by white elites to maintain their power in the segregated South, including arbitrary tests administered by white authorities to prevent Black people from voting.
“We want to register and become first-class citizens,” Hamer explained to the committee.
In this election, it remains to be seen if every eligible citizen can cast a ballot and have it counted, according to U. s. Rep. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday, Bennie Thompson will give a speech. When he was a Mississippi college student in 1966, Hamer encouraged him to help register other Black voters, which gave him his first real-world experience with democracy.
Watch more about the 1968 Democratic convention and its continuing significance.
This week, since the Democrats’ convention convened on Monday, Hamer has already been the recipient of gratitude.
Thompson, who oversaw the House committee that looked into the Jan. 21 attacks, stated, “As Americans, we have a challenge to ensure that this experiment called democracy is not just for the landed gentry or the wealthy, but for everybody.”. The rebellion of June 6, 2021 at the U. s. capital.
“Is this what America looks like?”.
Hamer grew up in the Mississippi Delta’s cotton fields and eventually became a sharecropper. She became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and contributed to the planning of the Freedom Summer voter registration and education campaign. Activists founded the racially integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in response to Mississippi’s white-only primaries, with the goal of taking on prominent Democrats nationally.
Hamer told the credentials committee, “I question America if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now.”. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to go to sleep with our phones off hooks because we want to live as decent human beings in America, where our lives are threatened on a daily basis?”.
The President, Lyndon B. During Hamer’s testimony, Johnson hurriedly called a press conference in an attempt to deflect criticism away from divisions that might enrage white voters in the South. TV cameras cut away, but her speech was later aired on networks.
Leading Democrats claimed that Hamer’s organization could seat two delegates, but the Freedom Democrats felt that was insufficient. And it was too much for the regular Mississippi delegation, which left the convention without professing their allegiance to LBJ. Segregationists and other conservative Democrats in the South eventually defected to the Republican party, and the Mississippi delegation eventually left for good.
See Also: Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, delivers a speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2024.
One of the Freedom delegates, Leslie-Burl McLemore, remembers how resolute they were.
The retired Jackson State University political science professor recently stated at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, “I knew in my mind, because I’m 23 years old and I’m vice chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, I’m not going to accept that damn compromise.”.
The white folks did not include any Black people in their delegation, according to McLemore, who stated that “we had four white folks in our delegation.”. Well, at least God was on our side. “.
risking savagery and demise.
David J., Ella Baker, and Bob Moses were among the other organizers. Dennis Sr. Dennis delivered a passionate eulogy at the funeral of James Chaney, a volunteer for Freedom Summer who was murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman by Ku Klux Klansmen, just a few days prior to the 1964 convention.
When Hamer testified in 1962 about being evicted after attempting to register to vote, the violence was still recent. The plantation owner allegedly said to her, “We’re not ready for that in Mississippi.”. ‘”.
Hamer also related how, in 1963, she and a few other Black people returned from a voter education workshop and were arrested and physically assaulted by white law enforcement officials in Winona, Mississippi. Her legs, kidneys, and eyes were permanently harmed by the beating.
In honor of the Freedom Democrats, Atlantic City hosted the unveiling of the first Mississippi Freedom Trail marker outside of the state on Tuesday. In Winona, another memorial honoring the beatings in jail was dedicated in June. When Hamer and Euvester Simpson shared a cell in 1963, Simpson was seventeen. She claimed to have heard Hamer being spanked in a different room.
“Mrs. The gospel song “Walk With Me” and wet rags helped Hamer feel better, Simpson recalled. “Hamer told me she was in a lot of pain.”. “.
Her back ached. Her hands were gushing blood. Due to her usage of her hands as a sort of back guard, she was swollen, according to Simpson.
Hamer’s 1964 testimony raised a number of issues, including “state-sanctioned violence,” which Keisha N. mentioned. The historian Blain is from Brown University. She cited the Black woman Sonya Massey’s July 6 shooting death at the hands of a deputy who was dispatched in response to her 911 call.
Even though the particular circumstances have changed, Blain claimed that this theme is still present.
speaking up in favor of body autonomy.
Hamer supported bodily autonomy, even though she didn’t mention it in her testimony at the convention. When she had a uterine tumor removed in 1961, a white physician had performed a hysterectomy without her consent. In the South, Black women were treated in such a way so frequently that Hamer coined the term “Mississippi appendectomy.”. “.
Hamer believed that birth control and abortion were “white supremacist tools to regulate the lives of impoverished Black people and even prevent the growth of the Black population,” as Blain noted in her 2021 book “Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America.”. “.
Watch the entire speech delivered by former president Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2024.
Following the convention, Hamer continued to speak, notably expressing her frustration with the length of time America was taking to guarantee fair treatment, stating that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”. Johnson waited another year to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and it took almost another year for the Supreme Court to confirm the legislation.
A 2013 Supreme Court decision eliminated a major component of the Voting Rights Act, which required states with a track record of racial discrimination in voting—primarily in the South—to obtain federal approval before making changes to their electoral processes. According to Blain, “many communities across the nation are grappling with attempts at voter suppression.”.
In addition, Hamer supported treating Black farmers fairly. More than $2 billion in direct payments to Black and minority farmers who experienced discrimination from the U.S. government were announced by the Biden administration in late July. S. Agriculture Department.
JD Vance, the GOP nominee for vice president, called this “disgraceful,” implying that it is discriminatory toward the white population. However, Thompson claimed that Black landowners had long been excluded from the USDA’s credit program and assistance. Thompson stated, “The disenfranchisement system was a product of the people who ran the federal agencies.”.
Nevertheless, inspiring.
When Hamer spoke in October 1964 at a church in Ripley, Mississippi, Wil Colom, a lawyer from Mississippi who is currently in Chicago for the convention and serves on the Democratic National Committee, was a teenager. After her appearance, the church was set on fire. According to Colom, the speech was “electrifying” and inspired him to speak out against segregation in swimming pools and theaters.
Before Hamer passed away from cancer in 1977 at the age of 59, Colom claimed to have paid her a visit at her modest Ruleville home.
“It surprised me that she was unaware of her significance as a prominent figure,” Colom remarked.
According to Dennis, the Freedom Democrats paved the path for both Harris’ nomination and President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008.
Dennis declared, “It’s all connected to me.”. Like a relay race, that is. Before moving on to the next baton. “.
