Tuesday, February 17, 2009
example
Besides the volunteers themselves, one example that really stuck me was that of Fanie Lou Harner. In fact, one of the est lines in the book, I think, is "I question America" (119). I think it's what we're really doing in today's society with things like lobbying or political cartoons and If we're not, then we need to be or we won't be thinking criticaly.
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Fannie Lou Hamer's story is an extremely moving example of how women of color can become leaders in their communities when they really look at the conditions of their own lives, and work to make things better for their children. Hamer became active in the movement when SNCC volunteers first began working in Mississippi, so that by the summer of 1964 she was at the forefront of the efforts to politically empower black Mississippians. She lost her job, suffered beatings and sustained serious damage to her body that remained for the rest of her life, but she believed that her home state and the nation as a whole could live up to the promise of democracy and true freedom. She demonstrated this as a delegate for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an alternative to the all-white regular party, and with the MFDP, sought representation for black Mississippi voters at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in August 1964. The line you refer to comes from her speech before the credentials committee, urging them to accept the MFDP as the legitimate representatives of all Mississippi citizens, and also called further national attention to the struggles in the state and in the civil rights movement as a whole. It is important to remember that President Johnson cut into the news broadcast featuring Hamer to deliver his own speech; again, we all need to question the actions of our government, and figure out whose interests are truly being served.
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