Fannie Lou Hamer For Freedom's Joke Summary

In 1999, Chana Kai Lee wrote a biography, “For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” to instill in her readers the life and torments African American’s had during the Civil Rights movement. Fannie Lou Hamer (born Townsend) was the last of twenty to two sharecroppers in Montgomery County, Mississippi, and after growing up working the fields in rural poverty, Fannie Lou married Perry Hamer in 1944. In 1962, she had a life-changing experience when she attempted to register to vote for the first time. Hamer, from then on, consumed herself in Civil Rights in every aspect even if she put herself in harm’s way.
Fannie Lou Hamer’s first encounter with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was, in 1962, when they came to Ruleville,

She was invited to speak to the Convention’s Credential Committee where she spoke of her hardship of voter registration and her petrifying experience in Winona. Hamer questioned America about what they were doing for African Americans because “our lives are be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?” (Lee 89). Also expressed at the convention, Hamer argued that Democratic Party should not seat people who allowed for the sterilization of women, including herself, in Mississippi. With her speech broadcasted all over America, Johnson, worried about his reelection, sent Senator and potential running mate Hubert Humphrey down to Mississippi to negotiate with the MFDP about two non-voting seats. The MFDP deeply considered the compromise, but Hamer believed it was unacceptable. A vote was taken, and the MFDP voted no to Johnson’s compromise because they were not going to accept anything less than Edith Green’s compromise “which proposed, ‘that each individual on both Mississippi delegations should be offered the chance to sign a loyalty oath, that any member of either delegation who signed should be seated, all others rejected, and the total number of Mississippi votes split among all those signed and were seated’” (Lee 90). Since Hamer was disliked by