any things. “She returned to her political activities more energized that ever, rising with the sun and going out in the early hours of the morning to canvass among day laborers in the fields, and making evening rounds to small countryside churches where she sang and preached a message of hope to anyone who would listen about the power of the vote”. Hamer was employed by the SNCC, making ten dollars a week, provided they had the money.“For months, she tried unsuccessfully to work with the traditional Mississippi Democratic Party by offering to go to work on the precinct level. She had no luck at all”. However after many attempts to join this party, “Hamer and SNCC activists concluded that the only way to attack the tight Mississippi political machine was to establish and political party of their own. They did, and they named it the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)”. Civil rights organizers formed the MFDP in March 1964 and chose their name to distinguish themselves from the mainstream Democratic Party. The reason the MFDP was formed to challenge the legitimacy of the all-white state Democratic delegation. “As an “independent movement-led party,” the MFDP would also introduce black men and women to the empowering prospects of political ownership—which they had experienced almost solely, if at all, in the black church”. Fannie ran for a seat in congress under the MFDP ticket in the Democratic primary. Because of her previous work in 1964 the MFDP got more votes than the regular Democratic Party. This new party sent a delegation, which included Fannie Lou Hamer, to Atlantic City, where the Democratic Party was holding its presidential convention. Its purpose was to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation on the grounds that it didn't fairly represent all the people of Mississippi, since most black people hadn't been allowed to vote. Despite th...
