“You can pray until you faint, but if you don’t get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” Fannie Lou Hamer spoke these words to a group of activists in Mississippi who were willing to put their lives on the line to exercise their right to vote. Ms. Hamer was a person of deep faith, who believed that God was with her and all people who sought to correct injustice and bring about equality, equal access to the promises and guarantees she learned about. Born in Mississippi, working as a sharecropper, someone who didn’t own the land, but had to give a portion of their crops to cover the rent, the right to use the land, she learned she had the right to vote as a woman in her 40’s at a church meeting just as the civil rights movement was just beginning. I’ve spoken with a number of people in their 40’s and older who when presented with new information automatically say: “Oh boy, if I was younger, I would make use of what I know now.”

 

But Ms. Hamer did something incredibly rare and remarkable for any human being. Once she learned a new piece of information, something that mattered to her, she risked everything she had done up to that point to integrate and realize this newfound information. She risked everything she had, including her own life, to help herself and others realize basic access to health and self determination, including the right to vote.
And she was a threat to the power structure of America. Ms. Hamer became world famous when she was called to testify at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. She and the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party arrived at the Convention and demanded the delegate seats for Mississippi, because black people had systematically and intentionally been denied the vote, and thus had not approved of the elected delegates. Other civil rights leaders were there including Martin Luther King Jr. who testified. But something happened during Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony that was surprising and showed how much social and political power she had.

 

When she was called to testify, she didn’t begin with legal jargon, she didn’t begin by quoting the Bible, she didn’t enlist any of the known tools of either the politician or the preacher. She did something that was far more powerful and effective. She shared her life story, and her struggle to try to vote. She shared what her life as a sharecropper was like, she recounted her direct experience of police brutality, she shared how she had lost her livelihood and her home because she tried to register to vote. It was so powerful and effective, that the president of the United States at that time, Lydnon Johnson called an emergency press conference so that America did not have to watch her testimony on their television sets. At the press conference, Johnson said it was the 9 month anniversary of JFK’s assassination, and he babbled for about 5 mins about JFK, and by the time the cameras rolled again at the Convention, Hamer’s testimony was over.
The interruption backfired. All the reporters at the Convention focused on Hamer’s testimony, and it played into America’s homes on all the news channels. Bob Moses, one of the activists who attended the Convention makes a keen observation:

Johnson did not ask for an emergency press conference during Martin Luther King Jr’s testimony, the fear and panic occurred during Hamer’s testimony. And the reason for that was simple: In Hamer’s testimony there was nothing abstract, nothing secondhand. She spoke of her direct personal experience, and when she spoke, she conveyed the pain and struggle, and it was so clear and so obvious that it was impossible to ignore, and impossible to turn away. Her voice and her lived experience became America’s experience, and she made it clear how her problems, her experience of brutality were the problems of this country, the brutality of America. But it was more than just an indictment. It was an appeal to moral vision, that if anyone listening had any moral compass whatsoever they would join her and people like her in the struggle for equality.
I lift up Ms. Hamer this morning because she knew her power, and she used that power to benefit all of us, especially those denied basic access to making decisions about their own life.

 

She made that clear again and again. It was not just about voting rights – the prevention of access to voting was a symptom of a much deeper problem in America. The deeper problem is the way our country on many different fronts seeks to discourage, distract, and deny certain groups of people of the right to chart their own life, and make a life for themselves. In the interview Ms. Hamer is clear that all the tactics are used: denying access to food, denying access to adequate housing, denying access to quality education, denying access to equal protection under the law. And Ms. Hamer through example showed us, all of us, that helping people gain access, helping people gain the ability to exercise their rights as a human being, to chart their own destiny through voting, through business that supports rather than deprives their own community, this is worth putting everything on the line for.
Many of you know that many of the protections of the Voting Rights Act have been removed or nullified in the past 15 years.

 

I and I’m sure many of you have witnessed voter intimidation, and many tactics especially in Ohio to try to prevent groups of people, African Americans, working class people from making pivotal decisions about their community. Many of the problems Ms. Hamer discusses in 1968 are the same problems we still see today in Youngstown, and in this country. Predatory lenders, failing school systems, lack of affordable and healthy food. Ms. Hamer understood that these mounting problems if left unaddressed, or if not engaged with adequately would lead to rage, lead to destruction, lead to depression, lead to hopelessness. But she also lived a solution to these problems. Her life didn’t solve all the problems that exist to this day, but she did show by example what it means to live a life that is engaged in the struggle, engaged in the vision of health and prosperity for yourself and health and prosperity for our communities. I think this is a realization that I see taking hold and enlightening some people: that you can’t be healthy if your community is unhealthy.

 

True health is not found in just taking care of yourself, but being willing to engage in the struggle of others, who want what we all want: to be happy, to be free, to be safe. We find happiness by engaging those who struggle, including the ways we struggle. We find freedom in discovering that our life is shared, not separate. We find safety in reaching out of our comfort zones, to bring more people ease and the possibility of joy.
I think there is joy in a life well lived, and Ms. Hamer lived well. I think it’s a mistake to think that we’ll be happy, that we’ll be fulfilled once all these problems, all the problems in our community are fixed, rectified. I think that is a trap. A common trap. With that way of thinking, if we can’t imagine how something will be fixed, how we will be successful in our efforts, then it’s not worth trying at all.
We act because we care and because we’re connected, all of us. That’s it. We do what we can, not because it will be rewarded, or because we’re going to cure what is wrong with this country.

 

We do it because the effort is the cure, joining together, struggling together, enduring setbacks together and persevering, that is the cure. I think it really is a path, and in my opinion, a good path.
Which is why I consider Fannie Lou Hamer more than an activist. She’s a spiritual teacher and an inspiration, someone who challenges my moral compass, someone who knew how to cut through bs, and speak truth to power, and truth to her community. And the truth was not just about hardship, it was about hope. As we saw in the interview that occurred, she didn’t think she had all the answers, and you could tell she was pained by the way she saw her community suffering and being exploited. The hope for me was her willingness to stay engaged, to do what she could, even if she didn’t have the answers. She embodied a kind of practical faith, that answers or responses can come by staying engaged. But if you wait for answers before you decide to engage, before you decide to meet those in your community, you’ll probably wait out your lifetime.

 

Again this awareness is beginning to don on some people. It’s not about helping certain groups of people. In truth, it’s helping ourselves, it’s helping all of us. Because we’re all connected, if one part of the body is sick, the whole body is sick. So we tend to it, not because we’re experts, but because we care for our body, our body politic, our world. If I slice my hand, I try to find a way to stop the bleeding, even though I’m not a medical doctor. I do my best – I find a rag, I try to clean it, and of course if I can go to a doctor, I will. But I don’t wait for an expert, and let myself just bleed out until the experts arrive. I learned this analogy from a spiritual teacher. Many of us fall into a trap of waiting for an expert, or waiting on someone who has more experience, or who knows something, or who has lived through the exact same experience. Of course all that is very helpful. But to wait and do nothing until those people arrive, is not so wise. We can all do something.

 

We all have a position, we all have a position in this community, and from that position we cannot do everything, but we can do something. When I say our position, I mean everything we are. It’s not just our work. It’s our social location, our history, our access to money, our lived experience: all of this is our position. And each of us has something to offer, and I truly mean every single one of us.
Fannie Lou Hamer understood her position, and she took her place as a member of our community, for the benefit of all of us. Her voice, her direct experience, her faith, and her actions based on that faith, her engagement: literally gave life to others. I’ve had people ask me in the past if I believe in resurrection, and I say absolutely. Fannie Lou Hamer is one of the reasons why. She looked at people, and through her look, her voice, her song, her companionship in struggle, she brought people to life. You can have people who feel rightfully so they are denied the basic building blocks of life, and through engagement show what it means to be alive.

And what does it mean to be alive? I’ll share the answer I learned from Fannie Lou Hamer: to share our light with each other indiscriminately, without discrimination. Each of us has a position, and from that position, each of us is a light. I learned from Fannie Lou Hamer: share the light liberally. Share it everywhere we go, with every person we meet. Share it with our loved ones, share it with strangers, share it with our entire community. We don’t need to wait to have an answer to a problem, before we share our light. Our light is who we are, and when we share our light, we manifest our life. And that at its heart is a joy, it is happiness, it’s a relief. It’s a comfort and an inspiration. You don’t need a special set of skills or experiences to do this. We all can do this.
It’s amazing we have this opportunity on this day to do that. In sharing our light, we will learn what it truly means to live. We will learn, we will certainly make mistakes, and we will learn from our mistakes. Don’t wait until you think you’ve figured something out to act from a place of compassion, and seeking understanding. Seek to do less harm, to do good, and do good for others. Our light and the light of others will guide us, teaching us, showing us what it means to be really alive for the benefit of all of us.

Topics: Inner Light