[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 150 (Tuesday, August 24, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E927-E928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING FANNIE LOU HAMER'S 1964 SPEECH ON VIOLENCE TOWARD BLACK 
                     AMERICANS REGISTERING TO VOTE

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 24, 2021

  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and 
honor Fannie Lou Hamer, whose speech on the violent oppression of Black 
voting rights on August 22, 1964 still rings too true today. Delivered 
to the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention, her 
speech details the violence at the hands of agents of the state that 
she and other Black Americans encountered

[[Page E928]]

in trying to register to vote in Mississippi in 1962 and 1963.
  The various barriers, via literacy tests and intimidation, as well as 
the physical beatings endured by Fannie Lou Hamer and her compatriots 
remind us of the critical importance of the proactive right to vote. 
She was a civil rights leader fighting for voting rights and women's 
rights. She dedicated her life to speaking up and out through her 
activism and campaigns for elected office. Her words continue to 
inspire and to underscore the importance of supporting the right to 
vote in the face of new barriers and new, surreptitious Jim Crow laws.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the full text of her remarks 
delivered on that day in 1964.

    Testimony Before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National 
         Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey--August 22, 1964

       Mr. Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee, my name is 
     Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette 
     Street, Ruleville, Mississippi, Sunflower County, the home of 
     Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Stennis.
       It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us 
     traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in 
     Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens.
       We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, 
     and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test 
     at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to 
     Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State 
     Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola where the bus 
     driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong 
     color.
       After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to 
     Ruleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in 
     the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and 
     sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my 
     children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry 
     because I had gone down to try to register.
       After they told me, my husband came, and said the 
     plantation owner was raising Cain because I had tried to 
     register. Before he quit talking the plantation owner came 
     and said, ``Fannie Lou, do you know--did Pap tell you what I 
     said?''
       And I said, ``Yes, sir.''
       He said, ``Well I mean that.'' He said, ``If you don't go 
     down and withdraw your registration, you will have to 
     leave.'' Said, ``Then if you go down and withdraw,'' said, 
     ``you still might have to go because we are not ready for 
     that in Mississippi.''
       And I addressed him and told him and said, ``I didn't try 
     to register for you. I tried to register for myself.'' I had 
     to leave that same night.
       On the 10th of September 1962, sixteen bullets was fired 
     into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same 
     night two girls were shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. 
     Joe McDonald's house was shot in.
       And June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration 
     workshop; was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was 
     traveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to 
     Winona, Mississippi, which is Montgomery County, four of the 
     people got off to use the washroom, and two of the people--to 
     use the restaurant--two of the people wanted to use the 
     washroom.
       The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was 
     ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I 
     looked through the window and saw they had rushed out I got 
     off of the bus to see what had happened. And one of the 
     ladies said, ``It was a State Highway Patrolman and a Chief 
     of Police ordered us out.''
       I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the 
     washroom got back on the bus, too.
       As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw when they began 
     to get the five people in a highway patrolman's car. I 
     stepped off of the bus to see what was happening and somebody 
     screamed from the car that the five workers was in and said, 
     ``Get that one there.'' When I went to get in the car, when 
     the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me.
       I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking 
     room. They left some of the people in the booking room and 
     began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a 
     young woman called Miss Ivesta Simpson. After I was placed in 
     the cell I began to hear sounds of licks and screams, I could 
     hear the sounds of licks and horrible screams. And I could 
     hear somebody say, ``Can you say, `yes, sir,' nigger? Can you 
     say `yes, sir'?''
       And they would say other horrible names.
       She would say, ``Yes, I can say `yes, sir.' '' ``So, well, 
     say it.''
       She said, ``I don't know you well enough.''
       They beat her, I don't know how long. And after a while she 
     began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.
       And it wasn't too long before three white men came to my 
     cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he 
     asked me where I was from. I told him Ruleville and he said, 
     ``We are going to check this.''
       They left my cell and it wasn't too long before they came 
     back. He said, ``You are from Ruleville all right,'' and he 
     used a curse word. And he said, ``We are going to make you 
     wish you was dead.''
       I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they 
     had two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered 
     the first Negro to take the blackjack.
       The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the 
     State Highway Patrolman, for me to lay down on a bunk bed on 
     my face.
       I laid on my face and the first Negro began to beat. I was 
     beat by the first Negro until he was exhausted. I was holding 
     my hands behind me at that time on my left side, because I 
     suffered from polio when I was six years old.
       After the first Negro had beat 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 who 
     had beat me 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.
       One white man--my dress had worked up high--he walked over 
     and pulled my dress--I pulled my dress down and he pulled my 
     dress back up.
       I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.
       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 hooks because our lives be 
     threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human 
     beings, in America?
       Thank you.

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