There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.
Fannie Lou HamerA white man killed the mules and our cows that knocked us right back down. And things got so tough then I began to wish I was white.
Fannie Lou HamerAll of this is on account we want to register [sic], 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?
Fannie Lou HamerPeople 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.
Fannie Lou HamerThe only thing we took out was the Constitution of the State of Mississippi and the interpretation of the Constitution. We had 63,000 people registered on the Freedom Registration form. And we tried from every level to go into the regular Democratic Party medium. We tried from the precinct level. The 16th of June when they were holding precinct meetings all across the state, I was there and there was eight of us there to attend the meeting, and they had the door locked at 10 o'clock in the morning. This is what's happening in the State of Mississippi.
Fannie Lou Hamer