Peace, love and understanding

Page 114, From Black Women Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, by Zita Allen, copyright 1996.

Fannie Lou Hamer, who was beaten severely when returning from citizenship training school, said during training of young Freedom Summer volunteers, “The white man is the scardest person on earth. Out in daylight he don’t do nothin’. But at night he’ll toss a bomb or pay someone to kill. The white man’s afraid he’ll be treated like he’ been treating the Negroes, but I couldn’t carry that much hate. It wouldn’t solve any problem for me to hate white because they hate me. Oh, there’s so much hate! Only God has kept the Negro sane.

Help us communicate with white people. Regardless of what they act like, there some good there. How can we say we love God and hate our brothers and sisters? We got to reach them.”