Bill Text: MS HC24 | 2017 | Regular Session | Enrolled
Bill Title: Fannie Lou Hamer; commend her life and legacy upon the occasion of her 100th birthday.
Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: (Passed) 2017-01-25 - Enrolled Bill Signed [HC24 Detail]
Download: Mississippi-2017-HC24-Enrolled.html
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2017 Regular Session
To: Rules
By: Representative Sykes
House Concurrent Resolution 24
(As Adopted by House and Senate)
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION COMMEMORATING THE LIFE AND REMEMBERING THE LEGACY AND DISTINGUISHED SERVICE OF MISSISSIPPI CIVIL RIGHTS ICON FANNIE LOU HAMER, OF RULEVILLE, MISSISSIPPI, UPON THE OCCASION OF HER 100TH BIRTHDAY.
WHEREAS, on October 6, 1917, the world was blessed with the birth of an American voting rights activist, civil rights leader and generous philanthropist in the form of Fannie Lou Hamer, and now, 100 years later, upon the momentous occasion of her 100th birthday, the State of Mississippi as well as the United States of America still revel in the progress and promise that she bestowed upon her fellow Mississippians and Americans; and
WHEREAS, born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of 20 children born to her parents Ella and James Lee Townsend, Fannie Lou and her family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on the plantation of W.D. Marlow, where she began picking cotton at the age of six; and
WHEREAS, Fannie Lou attended school in a one-room schoolhouse on the plantation from 1924-1930, but when the importance of her ability to pick 200 to 300 pounds of cotton daily outweighed the importance of her education, she was forced to drop out and toil in the fields all day, fortunately though, not before she had learned how to read and write; and
WHEREAS, Fannie Lou's ability to read and write earned her the spot of time and record keeper for the plantation in 1944, and in 1945, she married Perry "Pap" Hamer, and the two of them worked together on the plantation for the next 18 years, until Mrs. Hamer was fired for registering to vote; and
WHEREAS, Mrs. Hamer began her trailblazing journey to help achieve equality for African Americans at the polling place in the 1950s, when she attended several annual conferences of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where she became inspired from civil rights activists such as Mahalia Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan; and
WHEREAS, in 1961, Mrs. Hamer truly realized the importance of her pleas for equality and change in the South and across the country when she entered an operating room to have a tumor removed but left without a tumor or any reproductive organs, as the white doctor from Mississippi had given her a hysterectomy without her consent as part of the state's plan to reduce the number of poor African Americans located within its borders, a practice common in the South during that time; and
WHEREAS, as a result of her "Mississippi appendectomy," the phrase she coined for her uninformed sterilization, Mr. and Mrs. Hamer were never able to have children of their own, but unwilling to let racism prohibit them from being parents, they later raised and eventually adopted two girls; and
WHEREAS, "sick and tired of being sick and tired," on August 23, 1962, after listening to an arousing sermon from Reverend James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that encouraged African Americans to register to vote despite the hardships waiting for them at the polls, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer did just that, she was the first volunteer to register to vote; and
WHEREAS, on August 31, the courageous Mrs. Hamer traveled on a bus with other recipients of Reverend Bevel's sermon to Indianola, Mississippi, to register to vote, and to help calm the nerves of her fellow passengers and help them understand that what they were doing was the right thing, she sang Christian hymns, including "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "This Little Light of Mine"; and
WHEREAS, the day she registered to vote proved to be bittersweet for Mrs. Hamer, because after that long, hot bus ride to Indianola, she had finally registered to vote, the same right all other Americans had, a step towards true equality, but upon her return to Marlow's plantation, she was fired for doing the one thing she had fought so hard to do; and
WHEREAS, her lack of employment ultimately benefitted the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, as the trials, tribulations and mostly, perseverance, reached the ears of Bob Moses, the SNCC organizer, who recruited her, "the lady who sings the hymns," to perform activist work all over the South, with her base location remaining in Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, during one of her more gruesome travel days, Mrs. Hamer and other activists were returning to Mississippi from a literacy workshop in Charleston, South Carolina, when they were stopped, falsely charged and arrested in Winona, Mississippi, but the ugliness did not end there as once they were in the jail, her colleagues were beaten by police in the booking room and she was taken to a cell where the police had ordered the two inmates inside the cell to beat her with a blackjack, which they did until she nearly died; and
WHEREAS, after being falsely detained for three days, Mrs. Hamer was finally released from the cell that would haunt her for years to come, and her recovery from the brutal beating lasted for over a month, but despite her recurring physical and psychological problems that resulted from that horrendous incident, she bravely continued advocating in Mississippi, organizing voter registration drives, including the "Freedom Ballot Campaign" in 1963 and the "Freedom Summer" initiative in 1964; and
WHEREAS, in the summer of 1964, Mrs. Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or "Freedom Democrats," to challenge Mississippi's all-white, anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention, which failed to represent all Mississippians, and through her efforts, and her many, many inspirational speeches on the issue, in 1968, the Freedom Democrats were finally seated at the convention and the party adopted a clause that demanded equality of representation from their states' delegation; and
WHEREAS, Mrs. Hamer campaigned unsuccessfully for United States Congress in 1964 and 1965, but in 1972, she was elected as a national party delegate, and throughout her life, she continued to work at the grassroots-level for programs such as Head Start, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign; and
WHEREAS, a day that will forever be wretched with grief and sorrow in the minds and hearts of all Americans, on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59, complications from hypertension and breast cancer ended the life of our beloved Civil Rights leader, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, but her legacy of change and progress will encourage young leaders in Mississippi and around the country for generations to come; and
WHEREAS, it is the policy of this Legislature to pay homage to such a selfless individual as Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and it is with solemn reverence and humility that we honor and cherish the memory of this giant of an individual and patron citizen of Mississippi on the auspicious occasion of her 100th birthday:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, THE SENATE CONCURRING THEREIN, That we do hereby commemorate the life and remember the legacy and distinguished service of Mississippi Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer, of Ruleville, Mississippi, upon the occasion of her 100th birthday.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be furnished to the family of Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, forwarded to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and to the members of the Capitol Press Corps.
