dc ♥ fannie lou hamer

I have found one news article about Fannie Lou Hamer here in DC in 1968.  She was on Capitol Hill on 22 August to speak before the Democratic Platform Committee's "People and their Government" panel. Hamer was one of a number of women, including Dorothy Height (National Council of Negro Women) and Lucy Benson (League of Women Voters), pictured above, who spoke.

Fannie Lou Hamer (Democratic National Committee Representative) told the committee:

"People ask us why we don't raise ourselves by our bootstraps.  If the boot and the strap have been taken from us, someone is going to have to help us."

She told the Foreign Relations Committee that "charity begins at home":

"Until we are free in Mississippi, no man is free in the United States."

Source: "Women Ask Civil and Equal Rights, Peace" Washington Post 22 August 1968, p. C3.

I'm curious about the event and whether there are full transcripts, audio and video. It was a virtual who's who of activists and organizations: NOW, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, B'nai B'rith Women, South Louisiana Democratic Women's Club, Women Strike for Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Another Mother for Peace, and Women for Peace.

Were you a member of one of these groups?  Do you remember seeing Fannie Lou Hamer?

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