Fannie Lou Hamer quotes
1917 – 1977 · United States, 20th century · Civil‑rights activist and voting‑rights organizer
About Fannie Lou Hamer
Born in 1917 to a sharecropper family in Mississippi, Hamer became a leading voice in the struggle for Black voting rights and cofounder and spokesperson of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Her plainspoken, experience‑rooted rhetoric and grassroots organizing shaped campaigns against Jim Crow until her death in 1977.
Quotes
“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Source: I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired, December 20, 1964 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The line appears in Hamer's speech “I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired,” delivered December 20, 1964, in Harlem.
Hamer turns personal exhaustion into political charge: the line ties bodily weariness to the cumulative toll of racism and voter suppression. Delivered in Harlem in 1964, it names tiredness as moral evidence that the status quo must change now.