An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

White as the dropping of snow.
They ain’t got God in their heart.
To hell they sho’ must go. 30
The song is more than simply a Christian hymn mixed in with some
criticisms of white people. It is a longing for home, which if we listen to
many songs in the Black gospel tradition, the singers aren’t just referring to
returning to heaven. They are also imagining a return to the home of their
ancestors, as Aretha Franklin suggests in “Going Down Slow,” recorded
during her Atlantic Records days. Hamer’s mother refers to “land on the
shore.” What exactly did she mean? It was not simply heaven. It was an
imaginary notion of returning home, to exist as Black people—to be free
and sovereign, away from white people. The depths of anti-Black racism in
the US, coupled with the capitalist system’s exploitation, tells us all we
need to know about how much whiteness has negatively impacted Black
folks, including Hamer. In this regard, it is no wonder that Hamer became
so politicized at an early age. She desired to know why she could not
simply be, and also wanted more for herself, family, and community.
Politicized from an early age, she ascended as a key figure in the civil
rights movement after being fired for trying to register to vote. She turned
that experience into working with the young Black and white students from
the North who wanted to help Black people get the right to vote. More than
being a matter of simply getting the vote, their actions were a direct
challenge to white supremacist rule in the South. In this way, they were
doing a radical act—one that got many people murdered.
Fannie Lou Hamer is considered a foundational figure in understanding
participatory democracy in the US South during the 1960s. Participatory
democracy is different from representative democracy, which is what we
have in the US. In theory, it is the idea that everyone can participate in the
democratic functions of society, and on this basis, everyone is equal. It is
expressed in a term they used to say in the 1960s: “people power.” While
the Athenians and Romans implemented participatory democracy in some
capacity (they excluded women and slaves), Black activists like Hamer
tried to use it as a means for Black people to rid themselves of white terror
and exclusion from basic rights such as voting. She understood everyday
people, how to organize and work with them, and helped train and educate
Northern whites and Blacks who came down to help get Black people