THE SHARECROPPER AND THE PRESIDENT: TWO LEADERS AT THE CROSSROADS OF DEMOCRACY

Abstract

AbstractThe author discusses the civil rights leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer, who rose from humble beginnings as a “poor, Black, Mississippi sharecropper,” to deliver “searing testimony at the Democratic National Convention during a hearing in front of the national party’s Credentials Committee” on August 22, 1964. The author calls leaders like Hamer “natural born,” and contends these leaders “do not follow the traditional path to positions of power and influence—they don’t have access to the best schools, employment opportunities, financial resources, or powerful interpersonal relationships and connections that position them for leadership.” Hamer was “poorly educated and raised in extreme poverty in an era when African Americans were denied equality and basic citizenship rights.” She “developed literacies distinctly separate from the spotty education she received in underfunded and segregated Black schools in Mississippi…her leadership sparked a dramatic movement forward in the fight for civil rights. In 1968, at the DNC convention in Chicago, Hamer’s state delegation was seated on the floor and Mississippi’s all‐white party was turned away. When she stood at the podium as a delegate from Mississippi, she received a standing ovation. That year a record 340 Black delegates and alternates from across the country sat and voted for the party’s nominees.”