Top 114 Quotes & Sayings by Fannie Lou Hamer

They - you know, when we walked in - when I walked in with the two white men that had carried me down - and they cursed me all the way down. They would ask me questions, and when I would try to answer, they would tell me to hush.

That's why I want to change Mississippi. You don't run away from problems - you just face them.

We hadn't heard anything about registering to vote because when you see this flat land in here, when the people would get out of the fields, if they had a radio, they'd be too tired to play it. So we didn't know what was going on in the rest of the state, even, much less in other places.

I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.

If I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I'm showing the people that a Negro can run for office.

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?

They talked about how it was our rights as human beings to register and vote. I never knew we could vote before. Nobody ever told us.

People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.

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.

What I really feel is necessary is that the black people in this country wil have to upset this apple cart. We can no longer ignore the fact that America is not the... land of the free and the home of the brave.

I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain't no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God's face.

I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn't go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn't go back.

If the white man gives you anything - just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.

On the 10th of September 1962, sixteen bullets was fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me.

I had to leave, and my husband was forced to stay on this plantation until after the harvest season was over. And then the man that we had worked for, he'd taken the car, and the most of the few things we had had been stolen.

Why should I leave Ruleville, and why should I leave Mississippi? I go to the big city, and with the kind of education they give us in Mississippi, I got problems. I'd wind up in a soup line there.

There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.

Nobody's free until everybody's free.

One day, I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change - not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.

With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that's what really happens.

I'd been in jail, and I'd been beat. I had been to a voter registration workshop, you know, to - they were just training and teaching us how to register, to pass the literacy test.

White Americans today don't know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that's where they made their mistake... they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.

Every red stripe in that flag represents the black man's blood that has been shed.

I saw in Chicago, on the street where I was visiting my sister-in-law, this "Urban Renewal" and it means one thing: "Negro removal." But they want to tear the homes down and put a parking lot there. Where are those people going? Where will they go? And as soon as Negroes take to the street demonstrating, one hears people say, "they shouldn't have done it." The world is looking at America and it is really beginning to show up for what it is really like. "Go Tell It on the Mountain." We can no longer ignore this, that America is not "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

just because people are fat, it doesn't mean they are well fed. The cheapest foods are the fattening ones, not the most nourishing.

Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable.

I remember, and I will never forget, one day - I was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me "could I pick some cotton." I told him I didn't know and he said, "Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store," and he named a huge list that he called off. I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again.

One day I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change-not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.

if I fall, I will fall five-feet four-inches forward in the fight for freedom.

If I am truly free, who can tell me how much of my freedom I can have today?

[My father] did get enough money to buy mules. We didn't have tractors, but he bought mules, wagons, cultivators and some farming equipment. As soon as he bought that and decided to rent some land, because it was always better if you rent the land, but as soon as he got the mules and wagons and everything, somebody went to our trough - a white man who didn't live very far from us - and he fed the mules Paris Green, put it in their food and it killed the mules and our cows.

I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared [to register to vote] - but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.

America that is divided against itself cannot stand, and we cannot say we have all of this unity they say we have when black people are being discriminated against in every city in America I have visited.

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.

Some things I found out in the National Convention I wasn't too glad I did find out. But we will work hard, and it was important to actually really bring this out to the open, the things I will say some people knew about and some people didn't; this stuff that has been kept under the cover for so many years. Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.

I have just as much right to stay in America - in fact, the black people have contributed more to America than any other race, because our kids have fought here for what was called "democracy"; our mothers and fathers were sold and bought here for a price. So all I can say when they say "go back to Africa," I say "when you send the Chinese back to China, the Italians back to Italy, etc., and you get on that Mayflower from whence you came, and give the Indians their land back, who really would be here at home?"

Whether you have a Ph.D., or no D, we're in this bag together. And whether you're from Morehouse or Nohouse, we're still in this bag together. Not to fight to try to liberate ourselves from the men - this is another trick to get us fighting among ourselves - but to work together with the black man, then we will have a better chance to just act as human beings, and to be treated as human beings in our sick society.

Black people know what white people mean when they say “law and order”.

Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.

[On her Freedom Farm Cooperative:] If you give a hungry man food, he will eat it. [But] if you give him land, he will grow his own food.

If this is a Great Society, I'd hate to see a bad one.

You don't have to like everybody, but you have to love everybody.

Hate won't only destroy us. It will destroy these people that's hating as well.

This white man who is saying "it takes time." For three hundred and more years they have had "time," and now it is time for them to listen.

A black woman's body was never hers alone.

We didnt come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired.

You know the Scripture says "be not deceived for God is not mocked; whatsoever a man sow that shall he also reap." And one day, I don't know how they're going to get it, but they're going to get some of it back. They are scared to death and are more afraid now than we are.

Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.

Christianity is being concerned about [others], not building a million-dollar church while people are starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person, out there where it was happening. That's what God is all about, and that's where I get my strength.

We have to build our own power. We have to win every single political office we can, where we have a majority of black people... The question for black people is not, when is the white man going to give us our rights, or when is he going to give us good education for our children, or when is he going to give us jobs-if the white man gives you anything-just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.

To support whatever is right, and to bring in justice where weve had so much injustice.

When I liberate others, I liberate myself.

It is our right to stay here and we will stay and stand up for what belongs to us as American citizens, because they can't say that we haven't had patience.

Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.

You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.

It's time for America to get right.

But you see now baby, whether you have a ph.d., d.d. or no d, we're in this bag together. And whether you are from Morehouse or Nohouse, we,re still in this bag together.