JACKSON, Miss. — Vice President Kamala Harris will accept the Democrats’ presidential nomination on Thursday, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of a historic moment when Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a powerful televised address challenging Mississippi’s all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Hamer’s testimony during the credentials committee session in Atlantic City was vivid and compelling.
She recounted being fired from her plantation job for attempting to register to vote and the brutal treatment she suffered in jail while advocating for the rights of other Black citizens. Hamer exposed the discriminatory practices imposed by white authorities that aimed to disenfranchise Black voters in the segregated South.
“All of this is because we want to register, to become first-class citizens,” she asserted before the committee.
The question of whether all eligible citizens can vote and have their votes count remains relevant today, as noted by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who addressed attendees at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Thompson highlighted his own journey into civic engagement, inspired by Hamer in 1966 while he was a college student in Mississippi.
Hamer’s contributions were acknowledged earlier in the week as the Democratic convention commenced.
“Our challenge as Americans is to ensure that this democratic experiment is accessible not just for the wealthy, but for everyone,” Thompson stated, referencing his role in investigating the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021.
Raised in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, Hamer became a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement, joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and playing an instrumental role in Freedom Summer, which aimed to educate and register Black voters. Faced with whites-only primaries in Mississippi, activists established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to confront the national Democratic establishment.
“If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America,” Hamer remarked during her testimony. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we must sleep with our phones off the hooks due to daily threats to our lives, simply for aspiring to be treated as decent human beings?”
In response to Hamer’s captivating testimony, President Lyndon B. Johnson hastily organized a press conference to steer attention away from the divisions troubling his administration. Although TV cameras momentarily cut away, networks later broadcast her powerful address.
Though top Democrats offered to seat two delegates from Hamer’s group, it fell short of their demands, leading to the withdrawal of the regular Mississippi delegation from the convention and contributing to a shift of conservative Democrats toward the Republican Party.
Leslie-Burl McLemore, one of the Freedom delegates, recalls the determination that characterized their efforts.
“At 23, as vice chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, I refused to accept any compromise,” the retired political science professor stated at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.
“Our delegation included four white members, while theirs had none,” McLemore added. “We had God on our side.”
Other notable figures included Ella Baker, Bob Moses, and David J. Dennis Sr., who delivered an impassioned eulogy for James Chaney shortly before the convention—a Freedom Summer volunteer murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The backdrop of violence loomed large as Hamer shared her personal experiences of being evicted for trying to register to vote in 1962, recalling a plantation owner who told her, “We’re not ready for that in Mississippi.”
Moreover, Hamer spoke about the horrific treatment she endured in 1963 after being jailed and beaten, injuries that would leave lasting effects on her health.
On Tuesday, a Mississippi Freedom Trail marker was unveiled in Atlantic City to honor the legacy of the Freedom Democrats, while another marker commemorating the jail beatings was dedicated in Winona earlier in June. Euvester Simpson, who shared a cell with Hamer, recounted the pain she observed in her fellow inmate and the support she provided during that distressing time.
“Mrs. Hamer endured immense pain,” Simpson recalled, reflecting on how she comforted Hamer with cold rags and the gospel song, “Walk With Me.”
“Her back was hurting. Her hands were bleeding. She was swollen from trying to protect her back with her hands,” Simpson recounted.
The issues surrounding “state-sanctioned violence” raised during Hamer’s 1964 testimony remain pertinent today, as highlighted by Keisha N. Blain, a historian who cited recent incidents reflecting systemic racism and violence against Black individuals.
While Hamer’s address did not include her advocacy for bodily autonomy, she had previously experienced medical exploitation—a hysterectomy conducted without her consent—a reflection of the systemic mistreatment of Black women in the South. Hamer referred to this invasive procedure as a “Mississippi appendectomy.”
Blain highlighted that Hamer’s concerns about reproductive rights still resonate, with parallels drawn to perceptions of abortion and birth control as tools of oppression against impoverished Black communities.
Hamer’s activism persisted post-convention, famously declaring she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired” about the slow progress toward equitable treatment. The Voting Rights Act was finally signed by Johnson a year later, demonstrating the enduring struggle for voting rights.
However, a 2013 Supreme Court ruling undermined key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, allowing states with histories of voter discrimination to modify their election laws without federal oversight. Blain emphasized that many communities continue to fight against voter suppression today.
Hamer also championed fair treatment for Black farmers, with recent announcements from the Biden administration promising over $2 billion in direct payments to those who faced institutional discrimination.
GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance criticized these efforts as discriminatory, yet Thompson defended the payments, highlighting the long history of Black landowners’ exclusion from federal support by the USDA.
Wil Colom, a Mississippi lawyer and member of the Democratic National Committee, recalled Hamer’s inspiring speech during a church visit in 1964, which incited resistance against segregation. He later visited Hamer at her home before her passing in 1977.
“She had no awareness of her significant impact,” Colom said, reflecting on Hamer’s humility despite her influential legacy.
The strides made by the Freedom Democrats paved the way for milestones in civil rights, including the election of President Barack Obama and now Harris’s nomination, illustrating an ongoing narrative of progress and perseverance. “It’s like a relay race. One baton moving to the next,” Dennis stated.
