Deepening Our Awareness

FANNIE LOU HAMER

4/5/2022

Fannie. Lou. Hamer. As I say her name over and over in my mind, tears glistening my face, I wonder why her story has such a profound effect on me. I’ve seen and read countless horror stories of brutality, lynchings, burnings, and a myriad of other atrocities inflicted upon enslaved people. Why then, does her story burn my soul so deeply? Perhaps it’s partly because she’s a woman with amazing tenacity. A woman who has withstood the horrors, the humiliation, and brutality yet, against all odds, came back stronger than before. Perhaps it's because she was only a few years older than my own mother yet experienced hardships my mother and her offspring were spared. Perhaps it’s because I’m reading her story amid current day attempts to undo all that she and all our civil rights activists fought for. A sense of horror washes over me, knowing that the valiant fight she and so many others fought may all have been in vain. The possibility that our right to vote could very well be obliterated, leaves me feeling so angry. Perhaps it’s all the above.

Fannie Lou Townsend was born on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She only had a sixth-grade education, having to leave school to work on a plantation with her family as sharecroppers. In 1944, she married Perry Hamer and continued to work on a plantation. She and her husband longed to have children of their own. However, when admitted to the hospital to have a uterine fibroid tumor removed, a relatively minor operation, the white doctor who operated on her gave her a complete hysterectomy, without her consent. This practice was so common it was tagged as the “Mississippi appendectomy”. Hence, she and her husband later adopted two daughters.

One day, Ms. Hamer decided to attend a meeting with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. That meeting left her feeling incensed by the ongoing efforts to deny Blacks the right to vote. Hence, she became a SNCC organizer. On August 31, 1962, she led 17 volunteers to register to vote at a Mississippi Courthouse. After given an unfair literacy test, they were denied the right to vote. On the way home, the police stopped their bus and fined them $100 because the bus was too yellow. (Yes, it actually says that on the History page). That night, the plantation owner fired her because she dared try to vote. The owner also confiscated much of the personal property she and her husband owned, including their car. Shortly thereafter, on September 10, while staying with a friend, 15 shots were fired at her, but she managed to avoid any bullets. She and her husband eventually moved to Ruleville, Mississippi with very little possessions.

On December 4, she attempted to register again, and again failed the unfair test. She promised to keep returning until she was allowed to register. On January 10, 1963, she took the test a third time and passed. She was told she was now registered to vote. However, on election day she learned she had no power to vote as she needed to pay poll taxes and show receipts.

Ms. Hamer became even more active with the SNCC and in 1963 attended a SCLC conference in Charleston, SC. On the way home, traveling by bus with co-activists, they stopped at a café in Winona, Mississippi. After being refused service by a waitress, a Mississippi patrolman came in and used his Billy club to chase the activists out of the café. The police made some arrests, but Hamer was on the bus. She got out to ask if it was okay for them to leave and the officers, in turn, arrested her as well. Once in the jail, some of Hamer’s co-activists, including a 15-year-old girl, were beaten for not addressing the officers as “sir”. Hamer was taken to a jail cell where two inmates were ordered to beat her with a blackjack. When Ms. Hamer screamed and squirmed, the officers held her still, groped her, and pulled her dress up to expose her body. The inmates were forced to beat her mercilessly. When finally released, weeks later, Ms. Hamer suffered permanent kidney damage, leg damage and a blood clot over one eye.

Having recuperated well enough to walk again, Ms. Hamer returned to her activist role, one month later. She continued to organize numerous voter registration drives. In 1964, she formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge the dominant force in the Democratic Party, the pro-segregationists. That same year, she ran for congress. Although her bid was unsuccessful, it elevated the MFPD to national recognition. She trained hundreds of college students, many of whom were white, to become civil rights activists and to help register people to vote. She was well known for her steadfast spirit, supported by her magnificent voice which she used to sing spiritual songs at churches to encourage parishioners to vote.

Ms. Hamer then set her sights on the Democratic National Convention. Her goal was to prevent the regional, all-white Democratic Party’s attempt to stifle African American voices. The MFDP traveled to the convention to stand as the official delegation from Mississippi. Due to her lack of education and limited ability to articulate effectively, she was looked down upon by President Lydon Johnson and others. In fact, Pres. Johnson attempted to suppress her speech at the convention by announcing a televised speech of his own. However, due to the emotional and powerful impact of her speech, most stations eventually televised it. She spoke of her attempts to register to vote as well as the harassments, hardships, and the beating she underwent while in jail. Hubert Humphrey attempted to compromise with Hamer, offering them two seats. However, Hamer rejected the offer and demanded more. In 1968, the MFDP was seated as the official delegation from Mississippi.

Once she returned to Mississippi from the convention, Hamer was in high demand. She became a major fundraiser for civil rights organizations, continued her work for voting rights, worked on school desegregation issues, instituted livestock and agricultural co-ops for more economic prosperity and was involved in Head Start programs for low-income children of all races.

In 1977, Fannie Lou Hamer died of complications with heart disease and cancer.
She is the epitome of Maya Angelou’s poem: “And Still I Rise”!!
Sources:
Wikipedia – Fannie Lou Hamer
Pbs.org
Womenshistory.org

IDA B. WELLS

3/4/2022

Ida B. Wells, who became a famous African American journalist, entered this world on July 16, 1862, three years before slavery was abolished. Her childhood years were lived during the period of Reconstruction. Having only been in bondage for the first three years of her life, she had no direct memory of slavery but saw the aftermath of it on the wounds of her mother’s beaten back.

She grew up in Holly Springs, Mississippi and was one of eight children born to James and Elizabeth Wells. At the tender age of 16, she found herself the head of her household, after losing her parents and baby brother to yellow fever. In addition to taking care of her family, she taught school and continued her studies. In 1881, Ida and her two youngest sisters moved to Memphis, Tennessee to live with her aunt where Ida continued to teach. By this time, Reconstruction was over as the northern troops, planted in the south at the end of the civil war to oversee the proper freeing of slaves, left in 1877.

Prior to starting her job as a teacher in Memphis, while waiting to take the exam, Ms. Wells accepted a job in Woodstock. On the train ride to Woodstock, the conductor told her she had to give up the seat she paid for in the first-class ladies’ car and move to the smoking section with the other African Americans. Ida refused and she was forcibly removed from the train. While she won the civil suit she filed, it was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

In 1891, at the height of the Jim Crow era, Ida lost her job as a teacher after criticizing conditions and under-funding in the Memphis schools. During this time, she wrote a few articles for a local newspaper and later decided to make it her career. She invested in the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and was later named its editor. She was the first female editor and co-owner of a Black owned newspaper.

In 1892, a friend of Ms. Wells, Thomas Moss, a Memphis letter carrier and grocer, along with two of his friends, was lynched by a mob after a confrontation with rival white grocers. Shocked and horrified by this action, Ida wrote an article in the newspaper urging African Americans to move out of Memphis for their safety. It was at this point that she began to focus on the increased lynchings in the United States. She set out on a courageous journey to highlight the numerous lynching of Blacks, mostly men. One of her editorials resulted in the burning of her office by an angry group of white people who resented her exposing the lynchings. Fortunately, she was in New York at the time where she decided to remain. She continued her writings and wrote an extensive article on lynching in America for the New York Age, a newspaper owned by an ex-slave. By the 1890’s, white lynching became a terrorist campaign to solidify and emphasize white control in the South.

In 1893, Wells published A Red Record, a personal examination of lynching in America. She also lectured abroad to garner support from reform-minded white people.

In 1898, Ida Wells brought her anti-lynching campaign to the White House where she called for President McKinley to make reforms. She also became an active fighter for Black women’s suffrage. Her work in this arena played a crucial role in the victory of woman suffrage in Illinois with the passage of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Act on June 25, 1913.

Ms. Wells is also considered as one of the original founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). However, she left the organization over philosophical differences. Many African American journalists to this day consider Ms. Wells the mother of journalism and honor her for her bravery, determination, and skillful reporting.

Wells died of kidney disease on March 25, 1931, leaving a long legacy of political and social activism. In 2020 she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific, vicious violence against African American lynchings.

Sources:
Womenshistory.org: Ida B. Wells
Nps.gov: Ida B. Wells

Reconstruction

1/26/2022

At the end of the civil war in 1865, troops from the north were planted in southern confederate states to ensure the freedom of chattel slaves. Since the north won the war, thus keeping the Union intact, the south was required to relinquish their forced free labor. In conjunction with this, amendments to the Constitution were added, namely the 13th, 14th , and 15th Amendments. The 13th Amendment allowed for the freedom of slaves, except as a punishment for crime. While there are several sections to the 14th Amendment, it mainly granted citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people, and guaranteed all equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote.

The exception to the 13th Amendment is of notable importance. It makes an exception to freedom for anyone convicted of a crime. This was a compromise inserted in the Constitution based on Confederate demands. It allowed the southern states to make up laws, known as the black codes, that would criminalize ex-slaves so they could be re-enslaved. This time, however, it was “lawful” and deemed punishment for the commission of a crime. What did it matter if the crime was being unemployed (even though just freed) or talking to a white woman (which often resulted in lynching). Local jurisdictions were able to make their own laws against freed slaves which varied in each jurisdiction. Given the resistance to allowing slaves their freedom, one can only imagine just how ridiculous those laws could have been.

The 14th Amendment was designed to provide freed slaves, like all other citizens, equal protection under the law. However, it was, and still is, obvious that Black people are not afforded equal protection. During Reconstruction, this was evident by the imposition of the black codes, followed by Jim Crow laws.

The 15th Amendment which gave Black men the right to vote was probably the most advantageous, even if short lived. By 1877, when the northern soldiers left the south, Reconstruction basically ended. Black people had gained progress mostly in word, but not in deed. However, thanks to the 15th Amendment, a few Blacks were actually elected to Congress. Unfortunately, once the northern soldiers left, the Ku Klux Klan supplanted them and worked vigorously to reverse any progress gained.

So, after 250 years of slavery, Blacks endured another 100 years of vigorous Jim Crow laws which were designed to not only humiliate Blacks but restrict any progress toward real freedom. It wasn’t until 1964 and 1965 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act that some relief was felt. Now congress was not able to enact laws to deny all Black people the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act afforded Blacks many more freedoms, including the right to an equal education. During this time, blatant racism seemed to quiet down. This era could be considered a period of Reconstruction part 2, or Reconstruction 2.0, as described by radio talk show host Joe Madison. The open use of racial slurs lessened over time as did overt acts of racism in general society. Many schools had been integrated, affording Blacks an opportunity to gain a decent education and then onto higher learning. The submersion of racism allowed for many African Americans to join the middle class and gain a modicum of respect. Some went on to become national heroes and made marks on this society beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and against insurmountable odds.

Things seemingly progressed so much that, low and behold, the United States of America, in 2008, elected a Black man as President!! No one would ever have thought it. Black people were in a state of shock, followed by an overwhelming sense of pride. The Supreme Court was so “impressed”, they gutted a huge section of the Voting Rights Act, assuming that racism was over, based on the election results. This act paved the way for those wanting to stay in power and in control, to begin plotting on how best to do that. These plots began chipping away at democracy itself.

Yet, during this time of seemingly lost racism, undercurrents of it flooded policies and laws that were designed to straddle the success of Blacks and keep the restraints intact. No, racism had not gone away, it only went underground. Housing discrimination was, and still is, prevalent; drug laws were enacted with the intent of targeting Blacks; law enforcement, as a daily function, consistently targeted African Americans; hiring practices were often discriminatory; and covert racism existed everywhere. Then, because of laws designed to afford Blacks more access to equal education and jobs under affirmative action, whites and other races challenged these laws claiming reverse discrimination. So, because this country made an effort to equalize the playing field for Blacks who had suffered a whole history of horrific dehumanization, slavery, degradation and humiliation, other races cried foul. Whites who enjoyed privilege in every area of life, and other races who may have experienced comparatively minimal systemic discrimination, were now crying reverse discrimination. Once again, the chance at equity was being challenged.

Now, this country stands at a crossroad. Where we go from here has yet to be permanently determined. However, the vision looks bleak. We are clearly situated to repeat history when the first phase of Reconstruction ended. Once the soldiers left the south, all bets on equity and fairness were off. Now that voting rights have been gutted, it appears all bets are once again off. The future of Black rights as well as the future of democracy hangs in the balance. If this country allows democracy to fail, there is no telling how that will impact white Americans. African Americans understand that however white Americans are impacted, Black Americans will be impacted an order of magnitude more.

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