PENNSYLVANIA, September 22 - WHEREAS, In 1964, Ms. Hamer helped to found the Mississippi

Freedom Democratic Party, which registered 60,000 new African-

American voters in Mississippi in 1964 and was developed to

oppose Mississippi's exclusively white delegation at the

Democratic National Convention; and

WHEREAS, The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party sent Ms.

Hamer, who served as vice chair, to the 1964 Democratic National

Convention, where on December 22, Ms. Hamer gave an emotional

televised testimony recounting her June 9, 1963, arrest and

subsequent beatings; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer remained politically active after the

Voting Rights Acts passed, attempting to run for the Congress of

the United States in 1965, as well as helping poor and needy

families in her Mississippi community; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer helped establish the National Women's

Political Caucus in 1971, which was created to aid women seeking

government positions of all kinds, citing a similar struggle

shared by women of different backgrounds as a need to help their

advancement; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer was laid to rest on March 14, 1977, in

Mound Bayou, Mississippi, but the organizations she established

to increase business opportunities for minorities and to provide

child care and family services in her community lived on; and

WHEREAS, Ms. Hamer's tombstone in Ruleville, Mississippi, is

engraved with her famous words taken from a speech that she

delivered alongside Malcolm X at a 1964 Mississippi Freedom

Democratic Party rally in Harlem: "I am sick and tired of being

sick and tired"; therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the Senate honor Fannie Lou Hamer on her 104th

birthday in recognition of her vast and valiant efforts to

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