06/28/2016
Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer coined the phrase "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Hamer was born in rural Mississippi in 1917, the youngest of 20 children. She began working in the fields with her sharecropper parents at just 6 years old in order to make ends meet. In 1944, she married and along with her husband continued sharecropping. In 1962, Hamer attended her first protest meeting set up by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the leaders of the meeting were encouraging African Americans to register to vote. Despite intense opposition by law enforcement, Hamer registered to vote. As a result of this, Hamer lost her job and was kicked off the plantation she lived. But this only intensified Hamer's desire to help other people register to vote. She told the New York Times, "They kicked me off the plantation, they set me free. It's the best thing that could happen. Now I can work for my people." In the summer of 1963, Hamer was on the way back from registering people in South Carolina when she was arrested with a group of other organizers for trying to eat at a lunch counter. Hamer was severely beaten in jail, suffering permanent kidney damage and walked with a limp following the incident. She told the story of the beating at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, as a delegate from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a group of black voters who came together in opposition to the all-white Democratic party delegation from Mississippi. The speech included the famous phrase, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Hamer went on to run for Congress, unsuccessfully, but despite the loss, she began speaking at events and organizing rallies around the United States. She also participated in Democratic conventions in the late 1960s and early 70s. Hamer would help establish the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971. (Photo credit: Library of Congress)
