"Your Freedom is Shackled in Chains to Mine" (Revised)

The line that most impacted me comes from the second YouTube video “Fanie Lou Hamer Tells Her Story.” She states “And then I spent one night with Mrs. Tucker. And after about two days in September, they shot in the house about 15 times, thinkin’ I was there.” I found this statement to be so powerful because even though I do not know this woman that she speaks about, the act she speaks of shows the depth of ignorance and maliciousness so readily evidenced in white people during this era. That they did not care and only assumed Fannie to be there is just another case of the disregard for Black life in America. How could someone just shoot into a house, unsure of whether or not the target is actually inside? They clearly did not care about killing her or even doing the same or injuring any other person who may have been there at the time.

When looking at events like these and hearing accounts of how far white people were willing to go to stifle Black progress in this country, it astounds and angers me. This country, as Hamer says in her speech, “was built on the blood and sweat of black people” (125). There was a deep fermentation of hatred within white supremacists and their institutions that, to me, undermine Christianity and our so-called multicultural society. Those in power cannot ignore the heavy historical presence of African Americans in the foundation of this country, one that is supposed to be “free” with promises of “the pursuit of happiness.” During these turbulent times, there was no such thing as the pursuit of happiness. What they meant to say in our lovely Constitution was “You can pursue happiness so long as you are white and not one of the savage colored people we’ve exploited, abused, and subsequently disenfranchised.”

Listening to Hamer is one of those things where, in so many words, it is hard to witness because it is too difficult to contemplate and sheds light on characteristics within ourselves that we’d rather ignore. In my modern mindset, I am ashamed, but simultaneously proud. The shame comes from a place where I ignore my ancestors and the powerful and adamant Black women before me who fought and died and sacrificed their entire lives so that I could be free today. Many Black females today, myself included, do not take more time to honor these women and keep their messages and struggles alive in our hearts. I take pride, however, in knowing that the reemergence of these topics instills a need in me to recount what these women went through and just what it means to be Black and a female to my younger sister, female cousins and peers in the same way my mother and grandmothers taught me. More and more every day we live fatherless lives, so it becomes imperative to embody these strides of determination against the odds and not give in to societal pressures. A community effort, like the one recognized by Hamer in the pages of her speech, is one that encompasses individual accomplishment as a way to further and better our community. Without her and women like her we would not even have the opportunity to study her in an academic setting.