Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Mississippi in 1917. Her family’s livestock was poisoned by local white farmers because it was profitable. They became sharecroppers & at age 13, she attended school & picked 200-300 lbs of cotton per day. 1/

In 1945 she married & was planning for a family, but her doctor performed a hysterectomy without her consent. This program of forced sterilization of Black women was so common it was called a “Mississippi appendectomy.” Unable to conceive, they would later adopt 2 girls. 2/

At age 45 she attended a SNCC meeting & learned the power of her vote. So Hamer volunteered to register others in the Black community on their rights & how overcome the tools created to disenfranchise them such as registration tests & poll taxes. 3/

Upon hearing that she attempted to register to vote, the white farmer her and her husband worked for fired them both. She rejoiced at the opportunity to be part of the solution.
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In 1963, at age 55, Hamer led a voter registration drive. On the way home, she & others were arrested by police then taken to her cell where they forced 2 black inmates to beat her exposed body. She was left w/ a blood clot in her left eye & permanent kidney damage. 5/

The Prophetess
Ida B. Wells was born a slave in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Once the war was over,  Ida’s parents took advantage of that Reconstruction “glow-up” by becoming politically active & getting  Ida a quality education.
1/ Repost from: @praymarchact @janettaONI

After the Yellow Fever epidemic took both her parents, Ida became a teacher to provide for her remaining siblings. She attended Rust College and later moved to Memphis with her aunt for help caring for her siblings. 2/

The short efforts of Reconstruction left many ex-Confederates & former slave owners bitter & in need of a scapegoat. And with federal troops no longer around to enforce Emancipation laws, they chose to rule thru terror. This led to one of America’s greatest sins—lynching.  3/

3 of Ida’s friends were lynched by a mob after protecting their business fr jealous white grocers.  She wrote the tragedy “is what opened her eyes to what lynching really was: An excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth & property & thus keep the race down.” 4/

In response, Ida made it her mission to raise awareness about the injustice of lynching.  She wrote pamphlets, columns, & gave lectures around the world. She organized churches & boycotts & challenged racism in the Women’s Suffrage movement while still supporting their goals 5/

The Birth of the Black Church by @m_a_mcmickle

In 1787 The Constitution, signed in Philadelphia, began with the words, “We the people of the United States.” That phrase, “We the people,” leads us to the second event that occurred in the same city and in the same year. 1/

A group of African American members of St. George Methodist Episcopal Church went to worship. As they entered the sanctuary, they heard the worship leader say, “Let us pray.” As they knelt to pray suddenly an usher told them they couldn't pray on the 1st flr of the sanctuary. 2/

Instead, they would have to get up and go to the “colored gallery” reserved for so-called “colored” attendees.
Led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, the worshipers assured the usher that they would proceed to their assigned location as soon as the morning prayer was over.
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They reminded the usher that he was creating more of a distraction at that moment than they were. But the usher would not relent. He began to physically pull them from their knees to force them to move. 4/

At that moment, and without any prior coordination or agreement, Allen and Jones and the others with them turned around and walked out of the church. Allen concluded in his autobiography, “They were no more plagued with us.” 5/