Fannie Lou Hamer's Testimony Before the DNC Credentials Committee

Fannie Lou Hamer spoke to the Credentials Committee of the DNC on August 22, 1964 in order to secure speaking rights at the convention for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.  Hamer makes two main arguments in her speech: (1) registering to vote is a sign of being a first-class citizen in America and (2) those in power, White Americans, use force to restrict Black Americans right to be first-class citizens.  She makes use of extended personal examples, being forced off the land she worked as a sharecropper and being arrested and beaten by police after attending a voter registration workshop, to demonstrate the extremes White Americans would go to in order to prevent Black Americans from being first-class citizens.  She also makes reference to other examples of violence against Blacks, two girls being shot in Ruleville, Mississippi, the murder of Medgar Evers, etc., to demonstrate that this is not just her personal hardship but the reality of life for Black Americans in the South.  All of these examples work to show how the voices of Black Americans have been silenced by force and connects this direct and violent use of force to the DNC not giving Black voters a voice at the convention.  "All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens. And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America."