Fannie Lou Hamer's and Rita Schwerner's testimonies before the 1964 Democratic Convention were most significant due to their being televised, and therefore exposing the injustices and atrocities these ladies had been witness to and/or victims of to a national audience. Per the introductory text (Van Gosse), then President Lyndon Johnson perceived their accounts as so controversial that he “interrupted television coverage for a hastily organized press conference...”[1] He certainly had reason to be concerned, but it was moreso for his own political reasons of staying on the good side of southern whites, than in any empathy for the plight of these women and their peers.

At the heart of the matter was the issue of black voting rights in the South; in 1960 less than 2 percent of adult blacks in Mississippi (Ms. Hamer's home state) were registered to vote. Both she and Ms. Schwerner were advocates for bringing about change, and Hamer was part of a delegation known as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Their mission was to have more black representation as delegates in the Democratic Party, which in 1964 was still a “whites-only” club.

Hamer's and Schwerner's vivid recounting of the police harrassment, brutality, and humiliation inflicted upon them and others (including the murder of Schwerner's husband) garnered considerable sympathy for their cause, but in the end they were only offered a couple of “token”, non-voting seats on the Democratic delegation, which they turned down. They had won a small battle, mainly through the attention they attracted to the problem. But they certainly hadn't won the war.

There's a modern counterpart that I perceive for this story, and so I ask: would you agree that gay and lesbian activists face similar hurdles today? There seem to be small victories here and there- certain states allowing same-sex marriage (and then often over-turned), a few legislators that are openly gay, and even a professional athlete or two that have “come out”. But there's still a lot of bias and resentment, and even hate-crimes perpetrated against them. What do you think?

[1] Hamer, Fannie Lou. “Testimony to the Democratic Party National Convention 1964”. The

            1960s :A Documentary Reader. Ward, Brian ed. West Sussex UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

             2010. 79-82. Print.