black panther party – The Black Panther Party

Fannie Lou Hamer – An American Hero

Fannie Lou Hamer

Born: October 6, 1917 – Montgomery County, Mississippi

Died: March 14, 1977 – Mound Bayou, Mississippi

Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the most powerful grassroots leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement. She was not a lawyer, preacher, or politician. She was a sharecropper who decided she’d had enough.

Early Life

Youngest of 20 children in a family of sharecroppers.
Began working in cotton fields at age 6.
Received limited formal education due to poverty.
In 1961, she underwent a forced hysterectomy without her consent — a common racist practice in Mississippi known as a “Mississippi appendectomy.”

Turning Point – 1962

At age 44, she attended a meeting organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

She learned Black Americans had a constitutional right to vote — something she had effectively been denied her entire life.

She attempted to register to vote.

For that:

She was fired from the plantation where she lived and worked.
She received death threats.
She was harassed repeatedly.

She did not back down.

1963 – Arrest and Beating

In Winona, Mississippi, she was arrested for trying to desegregate a bus station.

While jailed, she was brutally beaten by other inmates under police orders. She suffered permanent kidney damage and a blood clot in her eye.

Afterward, she famously said:

“They could beat me as long as they want, but they couldn’t beat God out of me.”

1964 – National Spotlight

She helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

The MFDP challenged Mississippi’s all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Her televised testimony before the credentials committee shook the country. She described beatings, terror, and voter suppression in Mississippi.

She asked:

“Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to interrupt the broadcast because he feared how powerful her words were.

Millions still saw it.

Famous Quote

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

That line became one of the most enduring slogans of the movement.

Later Work

Organized Freedom Farms Cooperative to help Black families gain economic independence.
Worked to increase political representation in Mississippi.
Helped pave the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1972, she became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention — this time officially recognized.

Legacy

Fannie Lou Hamer represents:

Grassroots political power
Moral courage
Rural Southern Black women leading change
Faith-driven activism
Refusal to be intimidated by systemic violence

She never held major elected office.

She never became wealthy.

But she permanently shifted American democracy.

No More White House

They call it The People’s House. But when a sitting president—Donald Trump—takes a wrecking ball to a piece of it, just to build himself a ballroom, what he’s really tearing down is the illusion. The illusion that this house belongs to all of us. That our tax dollars, our history, our sacrifices—mean a damn thing when power decides it wants to redecorate.

If this house truly belonged to the people, then there would’ve been a vote. There would’ve been accountability. But no. There was silence. Complicity. A shrug. A nod. The same way there’s silence every time Trump steps over a line and dares the country to stop him.

And now? He’s not just stepping over lines—he’s rewriting the map. Floating the idea of a third term like he’s some emperor reincarnated. So here’s our position, loud and clear:

If Donald Trump is allowed to violate constitutional norms and run again, then we, the Black Panther Party, fully endorse a return of President Barack Obama—with Gavin Newsom as Vice President.

If the rules are being rewritten for tyrants, then they can be rewritten for justice too.

⸻

The People’s House Was Never Truly Ours

Built by enslaved hands, praised as a beacon of democracy while soaked in the sweat and blood of Black labor, the White House has always worn its irony like a crown. It was never neutral ground. From the architecture to the occupants, it’s stood as a monument to a very specific idea of power—white, male, wealthy, and untouchable.

They called it The People’s House to sell a dream. But for centuries, that house had no room for the people who built it. Not in its design, not in its decisions, and sure as hell not in its heart.

Fast forward to now: a president tears through it like it’s a casino he’s flipping in Jersey. A ballroom, of all things—during a time when people are sleeping on sidewalks, rationing insulin, burying hope. It’s not just disrespect. It’s a flex. A reminder that even the most symbolic house in America is still owned and rearranged by the powerful for the powerful.

And here’s the deeper pain—it’s not even shocking anymore. The People’s House being treated like a private estate? That’s America showing us, again, who it was built for.

⸻

It’s Time to Change the Name

But naming is power. Always has been. The name White House was never just about paint—it was a declaration. A subliminal claim of ownership. A visual cue about who the house is for, and who’s forever just visiting. Even when Barack Obama stepped inside as Commander in Chief, some folks still clutched their pearls like he broke in through the back door.

That house has never welcomed us fully. It tolerated us. It displayed us when politically convenient. But it never embraced the Black, the Brown, the Indigenous, the immigrant—the working class, the poor, the displaced. The People’s House? That was the myth. Not the reality.

And when Trump takes a hammer to its bones to build a ballroom? It’s not just about luxury. It’s a signal that his vision of America has no space for restraint, balance, or the voice of the people. Just ego. Just dominance.

And that’s why reclaiming it matters. Not just in name, but in practice. It has to become more than a symbol—it has to serve. It should reflect the actual nation, not the fantasy clung to by the powerful.

⸻

Call to Action: Paint It What It Is

So here’s our call to action:

What color should we paint it?

No, seriously. If it’s truly the People’s House, then it shouldn’t be stuck in one image, one name, one tradition rooted in exclusion. Let it shift. Let it reflect who’s leading, and who they serve. Paint it every administration. Let the walls carry the message of the moment—be it power, peace, protest, or pride.

Pink? Cool. Let it stand. Rainbow? Even better. Black, gold, green, blood red—if it speaks for the people, paint it. It should be uncomfortable sometimes. It should challenge us. That’s the point.

No more White House. We’re not asking. We’re saying it:

It’s the People’s House now. And the people have colors, voices, stories. So let the walls speak too.

Americans Live on $6 a Day

This is what hunger looks like.

JJ:

You ever seen a grown man cry over a grocery bill?

Monique M:

Twice this week. One of them was a vet. Other one had three kids and a busted radiator. She was asking how to stretch forty-three dollars across thirty days.

JJ:

Forty-three dollars.

Monique M:

That’s the average cut some folks saw this year. Pandemic-era boosts gone. Rent’s up. Eggs are still five bucks a dozen in half the cities I track.

JJ:

You tracking suffering like data?

Monique M:

I’m tracking survival. It’s my job to hand out lifeboats, but they keep shrinking the damn boats.

JJ:

Who’s shrinking them?

Monique M:

Congress. State-level administrators. Budget hawks who’ve never missed a meal. People who say “bootstraps” like it’s gospel. You know the drill.

JJ:

I know the drill. It was pointed at my uncle’s head when he got denied for assistance back in ’99. Said his disability check disqualified him. Said being poor wasn’t poor enough.

Monique M:

We lose staff every month. Burnout. Guilt. Some of us stay because walking away feels worse.

JJ:

So you’re inside the machine that’s grinding your own people.

Monique M:

I’m trying to jam it. I tell folks how to appeal, where the loopholes are, who to call when the office “loses” their paperwork for the third time. But it’s not enough. We need noise. We need backup.

JJ:

Forty-three dollars gone means forty-three meals gone. That’s a missed breakfast before school. That’s hunger making a child mean in class. That’s a mother eating instant noodles so her baby can have fruit.

Monique M:

And if she complains, the world says she’s lazy. Says she’s a leech. Says she should be grateful.

JJ:

Grateful for what?

Monique M:

A system that feeds her kids every other week and starves them in between.

JJ:

We’ve seen this game before. Starve the people. Blame the people. Punish the people for daring to survive.

Monique M:

So what do we do?

JJ:

We speak. We write. We show up. We use this page, this name, this legacy. No more waiting for things to get worse before we call it what it is: war by policy.

Monique M:

And you think that’ll change something?

JJ:

I know it will. It already is. You’re here. You came to speak. That’s how it starts.

Monique M:

Then let this be the start.

JJ:

Let it be the start, and not the end.

Food is a human right. The cuts to SNAP are not “budgeting.” They are violence by pen. This page stands with Monique M, and every worker, parent, elder, and child caught in this cycle. Forty-three dollars is a number. But behind it are names.

— Justice Jones