Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Okay, so now voting rights, we did register to vote, but it's hard for us to even vote.

She's co-starts the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

She even runs for office.

None of that is really working.

The third person that I would like to add to my Hall of Fame is Fannie Lou Hamer.

And she was the organizer of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and actually had the first— primary campaign that welcomed both blacks and whites.

And she sent a delegation, which she was part of, to the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

And she gave an impassioned speech.

I'm just thinking about the, you know, the reason for it is, um, and then I sometimes I could just, I, I just feel her spirit.

But like, I think about Fannie Lou Hamer, and when you like hear what Fannie Lou Hamer went through just to get people to register to vote, right? Started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, um, of course was involved in SNCC.

M- she mentored my old boss, Congressman Bennie Gordon Thompson.

Um, I don't know if she ever would've thought she'd see Bennie Thompson.

And once you get them, once you acquire the power, you get your feet under the table, you just simply become an actor within that continues to pursue these sets of interests.

Bob Moses, the late organizer of Mississippi Freedom Summer, COFO in Mississippi, one of my heroes, talked about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to me.

And he said, we had him at Princeton for a year.

It was the year in SNCC.

But then he was incredibly pragmatic about how he advanced the 1964 civil rights bill.

I describe in the book the dance that he performed with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party activists at the 1964 convention.

There was a

backlash building