Here is a collection of Fannie Lou Hamer’s memorable, courageous and brave quotes that inspires everyone.
Expressing the power of voice
1. “If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
2. “If the white man gives you anything – just remember when he gets ready, he will take it right back. We have to take care of ourselves.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
3. “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.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
4. “There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
5. “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
6. “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.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
7. “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.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
8. “When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out ain’t anybody going to speak out for you.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
9. “Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
10. “I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
Stand for what you believe in
11. “We didn’t come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we’d gotten here. We didn’t come all this way for no two seats, ’cause all of us are tired.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
12. “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.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
13. “To support whatever is right, and to bring in justice where we’ve had so much injustice.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
14. “If you give a hungry man food, he will eat it. [But] if you give him land, he will grow his own food.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
15. “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.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
16. “I’m showing the people that a Negro can run for office.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
17. “I believe in Christianity because the Scriptures said: “The things that have been done in the dark will be known on the house tops.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
18. “That’s why I want to change Mississippi. You don’t run away from problems – you just face them.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
19. “These people in Mississippi State, they are not “down”; all they need is a chance. And I am determined to give my part not for what the Movement can do for me, but what I can do for the Movement to bring about a change in the State of Mississippi.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
20. “Actually, the world and America is upset and the only way to bring about a change is to upset it more.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
21. “When I liberate others, I liberate myself.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
22. “I used to question this for years – what did our kids actually fight for? They would go in the service and go through all of that and come right out to be drowned in a river in Mississippi. I found this hypocrisy all over America.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
23. “Actually, some of the things I experienced as a child still linger on; what the white man has done to the black people in the south!” – Fannie Lou Hamer
24. “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats when all of us were tired.” –Fannie Lou Hamer
25. “A 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 Hamer
CITATIONS
https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/culture/10-fannie-lou-hamer-quotes-to-celebrate-her-100th-birthday
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/fannie-lou-hamer-quotes