Why We Must Vote

On The Precipice Of One Of The Most Consequential Midterm Elections Of Our Lifetime, Top Political Strategist Symone D. Sanders Urges US To Heed The Bold Legacy Of Fannie Lou Hamer And Her Political Crusade.

- Symone D. Sanders

On August 22, 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer went before the Democratic National Committee to insist that the Mississippi Freedom Party, an organization she started to help African-Americans register to vote, be seated to integrate the all-White Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention. Then President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to silence Hamer. His aides and allies pressured her not to speak, and in a final effort to keep her from being heard, President Johnson called an impromptu press conference so her words would not be televised. Fortunately, his plan to distract reporters backfired: Hamer’s 13-minute testimony detailing the inequities visited upon Black people who just wanted to vote in the land they called home was aired later that evening on prime time.

Hamer was a political force who would not be ignored. A local leader who thought globally, she knew she could not afford to sit back and let the injustices of her time go unchallenged and unchecked. Famously proclaiming, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer was a rabble-rouser who worked with an intergenerational coalition to get things done. Before the 1964 DNC Convention, the civil rights community knew Hamer’s work was making a difference. August 22, 1964, was merely the day that mainstream America was introduced to her greatness. She walked forcefully into a space that tried to exclude her, and she created room for herself—and for us. Standing in the gap for the millions of Black women who would follow her, in 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer spoke for all of us.