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140 “If the Name of the Game Is Survive, Survive,” Speech Delivered in Ruleville, Mississippi, September 27, 1971 As voting rights laws evolved after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, many blacks in the South entered the world of electoral politics, especially in areas where blacks outnumbered whites. Considering that she was a woman who marked her entry into civil rights activism on the single issue of voting, it was no surprise to find Fannie Lou Hamer running for elected office in 1971; it would prove to be her third and final attempt. Based on the encouragement of Charles Evers, Medgar Evers’s older brother, and the continued injustices she witnessed in her own community, Hamer ran for the Mississippi Senate as an Independent against two-term Democratic incumbent Robert Crook. Twelve other local black candidates ran as a slate called the Concerned Citizens of Sunflower County to Elect Black Officials (CCSCEBO). Hamer ran a spirited campaign despite little money, crisscrossing the state with out-of-town national figures such as Betty Friedan as well as more regional SNCC friends such as John Lewis and Julian Bond. Hamer was also known to travel with Gussie Mae Love, the mother of Jo-Etha Collier, who had been gunned down on May 25, 1971, in front of a Drew, Mississippi, grocery store by three drunken white men. Collier had been celebrating her high school graduation , which had taken place just hours earlier, when she was fatally shot in the back of the neck. None of the thirteen candidates comprising the CCSCEBO won their races, including Hamer, who was defeated by Crook, 11,770 to 7,201. Even in her hometown of Ruleville, Hamer lost badly, 720 to 434. White turnout proved to be very high as many locals feared what might happen should a black governing coalition control Sunflower County politics. Hamer and others also cited voter fraud and voter intimidation to account for the seemingly lopsided loss. Across the state, even though whites beat blacks in 259 out of 309 races, blacks now held 145 elected positions—more than any other Deep South state. 141 September 27, 1971 Hamer spoke very rarely from a manuscript, but before a Ruleville audience in late September, she relied on written remarks—which we’ve represented below with all their original emphases—to convey a righteous anger, but also the hopes of an interracial future. Long an admirer of Malcolm X, Hamer borrows from one of the Muslim militant’s favorite alliterations: “the ballot or the bullet.” Racism would be dealt with by “men and government” or by “men and guns,” and while Hamer favored the former, she did not believe that nonviolence was the only way; in her house were several loaded weapons—which she and her family knew how to use. Like Dr. King, Hamer glimpsed a future of racial harmony, but one premised on blacks and whites working together at the most local of levels; it was also premised on whites aiding blacks in economic development. This latter point is underscored by Hamer’s reference to James Forman’s “Black Manifesto,” a controversial reparation plan aimed at white churches to the tune of $500 million. While Hamer lent her name to the manifesto when it was made public in May 1969, its Marxist-inflected discourse conflicted with her own deeply Christian sensibilities . Even so, confronting Christians with their own hypocrisies was very much in keeping with Hamer’s longstanding critique of the church—black and white. * * * I expect a drastic change to occur in this country, particularly in the Deep South, as blacks become more aware of the importance of entering into politics and developing the skills necessary to find the solutions to the problems of “mass confusion.” I believe there will be more interest generated for politics at the grassroot level by the everyday kind of people who lost confidence in the democratic process because of corrupt politicians and their desires to perpetuate themselves in office while causing the “masses to suffer.” I would not advise blacks in the South to migrate to the North to change their situation. As a believer in God, I keep struggling with the belief that the situation in the South CAN and MUST be changed as more and more blacks become registered voters; and as more and more blacks become registered voters the “old line white racist politician” will begin to feel uncomfortable, because he will feel threatened at the thought of Black Power...

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