WHEREAS, In 1964, Ms. Hamer helped to found the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, which registered 60,000 new African-
American voters in Mississippi in 1964 and was developed to
oppose Mississippi's exclusively white delegation at the
Democratic National Convention; and
WHEREAS, The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party sent Ms.
Hamer, who served as vice chair, to the 1964 Democratic National
Convention, where on December 22, Ms. Hamer gave an emotional
televised testimony recounting her June 9, 1963, arrest and
subsequent beatings; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer remained politically active after the
Voting Rights Acts passed, attempting to run for the Congress of
the United States in 1965, as well as helping poor and needy
families in her Mississippi community; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer helped establish the National Women's
Political Caucus in 1971, which was created to aid women seeking
government positions of all kinds, citing a similar struggle
shared by women of different backgrounds as a need to help their
advancement; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer was laid to rest on March 14, 1977, in
Mound Bayou, Mississippi, but the organizations she established
to increase business opportunities for minorities and to provide
child care and family services in her community lived on; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer's tombstone in Ruleville, Mississippi, is
engraved with her famous words taken from a speech that she
delivered alongside Malcolm X at a 1964 Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party rally in Harlem: "I am sick and tired of being
sick and tired"; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the Senate honor Fannie Lou Hamer on her 103rd
birthday in recognition of her vast and valiant efforts to
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