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. - Fannie Lou Hamer

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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? - Fannie Lou Hamer

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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. - Fannie Lou Hamer

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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? -Fannie Lou Hamer

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

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I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. ― James Baldwin

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

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

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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. -Fannie Lou Hamer

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I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. -Fannie Lou Hamer

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