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98 “To Make Democracy a Reality,” Speech Delivered at the Vietnam War Moratorium Rally, Berkeley, California, October 15, 1969 In 1965, when Fannie Lou Hamer first began speaking out about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, hers was among a small chorus of bold voices to challenge the war. By 1969, however, there was a widespread shift in public sentiment— opinion polls indicated over half of the country felt that the United States should have never intervened, and antiwar protests began to grow in both participation and frequency. The first major demonstration to protest the Nixon administration ’s handling of the war was organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and held on October 15, 1969. New Mobe’s Vietnam War Moratorium Rally incited millions of Americans to take the day off from school or work and participate in demonstrations held in cities across the country. Hamer elected to participate in the nationwide rally by addressing a crowd gathered at Lower Sproul Plaza on the University of California at Berkeley’s campus, a school well known for its free speech and antiwar demonstrations. On that particular October afternoon, Hamer shared the podium with members of Berkeley’s city council, the university’s student body president, and a representative from the group GI’s Against the War in Vietnam. Her speech echoes others delivered that day in its call to “bring the boys home,” but it stands out from the rest as she grounds her opposition to the war in a variety of her lived experiences . For instance, Hamer exposes the interconnection between U.S. foreign policy and domestic civil rights abuses, which lead to unrepresentative representatives —Senator James O. Eastland is her case in point—who then fashion policies that run counter to the interests of the constituents they should be serving. Continuing in that vein, Hamer underscores the need for domestic programs to meet the basic entitlements of American citizens, reasoning that instead of fighting for democracy abroad America should redirect its efforts to feed those 99 October 15, 1969 “suffering from malnutrition” as a first step to “make democracy a reality for all of the people of this country.” As the impassioned applause and shouts of “right on” suggest, Hamer’s speech was well received by the West Coast students and activists she addressed. More than evidence of her continued ability to rouse a crowd, though, this speech also reveals that Hamer never lost her faith in the potential for institutions to effect the type of social change she desired; she reasons here that, unlike scores of former civil rights activists who, by the end of the decade, were saying, “Well, forget about politics,” this was a piece of instruction she found impossible to heed because “baby, what we eat is politic. And I’m not going to forget no politic. Because in 1972, when I go to Washington as Senator Hamer from Mississippi . . . it’s going to be some changes made.” Although Hamer never made it to Washington as a senator, she continued to exemplify her faith in the American system of politics by running for Mississippi ’s state senate in 1971 and by honoring her commitment as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. * * * I really feel grateful that what has happened here is something I said in front of Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., in 1965. After I had sent President Johnson a telegram telling him to bring the people home from the Dominican Republic and Vietnam—and I said to President Johnson at that time, “If this society of yours is a Great Society, God knows I would hate to live in a bad one.” But at that time, at that time, we felt very alone because when we start saying, “The war is wrong in Vietnam,” well, people looked at us like we were something out of space. But when they talked about the other day of the Gallup Poll being 58 percent of the people against the war in Vietnam then we see if you are right, you have to stand on that principle and if it’s necessary to die on the principle because I am sick of the racist war in Vietnam when we don’t have justice in the United States. I’ve heard, I’ve heard several comments from people that was talking about with the people, for the people, and by the people. Being a black woman from Mississippi...

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