Fannie Lou Hamer

Testimony to the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, August 22, 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer spoke from memory for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was challenging the state's regular delegation. In plain, steady detail she describes being put off the plantation where she lived after trying to register to vote, and the beating she suffered in the Winona jail, then closes by saying that if the Freedom Democrats were not seated, "I question America." President Johnson called a last-minute press conference that pulled the networks away, yet evening news programs broadcast her testimony anyway. No one else here speaks so directly from what was done to them.