Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that's what really happens.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the disparity between the ideal of government by the people and the reality of power being held by a select few.
Fannie Lou Hamer's quote critiques the notion of democracy as being truly representative of the people. She highlights the disconnect between the idealistic rhetoric often used in political discourse—'with the people, for the people, by the people'—and the actual practice where a small group maintains control, leading to a government that serves only a handful rather than the broader population.
Themes
DemocracyPoliticsRepresentationPowerInequality
In practice
Example use cases
During a political rally to discuss the importance of voting rights.
More from Fannie Lou Hamer
All quotes →You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
One day, I know the struggle will change. There's got to be a change - not only for Mississippi, not only for the people in the United States, but people all over the world.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?
Fannie Lou HamerRead
I was forced away from the plantation because I wouldn't go back and withdraw, you know, my literacy test after I had tried to take it. I wouldn't go back.
Fannie Lou HamerRead
Similar quotes
Rising political tribalism, shamelessly exaggerating our opponents' claims or behavior, is leaving us vulnerable: No one loves America's internal fighting - and our increasingly siloed news consumption - more than Vladimir Putin.
Ben SasseRead
Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful.
Otto Von BismarckRead
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening.
Noam ChomskyRead
You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets.
Barack ObamaRead
We see more and more of our Presidents and know less and less about what they do.
Bill MoyersRead