ArcaMax

As Vice President Kamala Harris made history at the Democratic National Convention to become the first Black and Asian American woman to be nominated for president, many people have also been reflecting on another African American female activist who challenged the racism among DNC Mississippi delegates 60 years ago: Fannie Lou Hamer. Hamer is probably best known for saying, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." She did not articulate this profound and passionate phrase at the 1964 DNC but at a Harlem rally at the Williams Institutional CME Church near the end of that year. Having toiled as a sharecropper in the scorching heat of Ruleville, Mississippi, Hamer knew extreme hardship and poverty as she and her family struggled to eke out a living picking cotton. Historians have referred to sharecropping as "slavery by another name," as it was an unscrupulous farming system that emerged after the Civil War. Former slaves grew cotton and other crops for White landlords and split half of their harvest but were often cheated out of the money they rightfully made. It was a grueling existence that kept many Black families in debt for generations due to fertilizer, seed and other needed farming equipment being leased to them. It's no wonder that Hamer was "sick and tired," as she and her family could not prosper working in the cotton fields and were continually oppressed in the Mississippi Delta region during the latter end of the Jim Crow era.

We have been blessed to come a long way in this country, where we are not dealing with the ruthless and depraved overt racism that Hamer battled, even though a remnant of it persists. As hope was a primary theme of the DNC, with Harris being an inspiration for many women of color, Hamer held on to hope in the chaos of misery while valiantly fighting for poor Black folks in Ruleville and neighboring counties to exercise their right to vote. Just attempting to register to vote cost Hamer her sharecropping job and her home. She vividly described her plantation owner "raising Cain" and blatantly telling her, "We are not ready for that in Mississippi." In 1962, she was beaten almost to the point of death while in a jail cell in Winona after traveling back from a voter registration workshop in South Carolina. Hamer boldly put her life on the line for her community to be heard and recognized by the politicians who were supposed to be representing them. When the DNC was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1964, Hamer gave a powerful testimony before the Credentials Committee, urging for her Mississippi Freedom Party members to be seated. Her account was an appeal to the committee's conscience when she boldly declared, "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 hook because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America." For Hamer, living as "decent human beings" meant enjoying the privilege of first-class citizenship.

As I took in the history that was made at the DNC, I kept thinking about the theme of hope and what it meant to Hamer, who helped blaze the trail for the opportunities that Harris and other young Black female politicians now have. Hamer's hope, however, wasn't solely built on political strategy and organization. She placed her hope and faith in Christ when coming against her darkest trials. The Bible was her source and roadmap in how to navigate a world filled with bitter hatred and prejudice. Kate Clifford Larson, author of the Hamer biography "Walk with Me," eloquently stated in a 2021 Religion News Service interview that Hamer would talk with God while "confronting trauma and violence." Hamer would ask, "Where are you, what is happening here, give me the strength to carry this weight and to move forward." That righteous strength is the most significant part of Hamer's legacy, and we would do well to emulate it in today's political landscape.

========

Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University's Lima campus. Email her at smojc.jj@gmail.com. Follow her on X: @JjSmojc. To find out more about Jessica Johnson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate, Inc.