MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2020 Regular Session
To: Rules
By: Representatives Dortch, Bell (65th), Clarke, Summers, Banks, Crudup, Jackson, Paden, Straughter, Taylor, Watson, Williams-Barnes
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION FORMALLY REQUESTING THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TO APPROVE THE REPLACEMENT OF THE STATUE OF JAMES ZACHARIAH GEORGE THAT IS DISPLAYED IN STATUARY HALL IN THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL WITH A STATUE OF CIVIL RIGHTS ICON FANNIE LOU HAMER.
WHEREAS, the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is comprised of 100 statues contributed by each of the 50 states to honor persons notable in each state's history; and
WHEREAS, thirty-five statues are now displayed in the National Statuary Hall, while others have been placed in other parts of the Capitol, including the Crypt, the Hall of Columns and the Capitol Visitor Center; and
WHEREAS, Mississippi has representational statues of Jefferson Davis and James Zachariah George displayed, which were crafted by Augustus Lukeman and dedicated in 1931; and
WHEREAS, Jefferson Davis, who authored Rise and Fall of the Confederate States, served in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, was President of the Confederate States and eventually made his home at Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, James Zachariah George was a Confederate colonel who served on the Mississippi Supreme Court and represented Mississippi in the United States Senate, helped frame the future Sherman Anti-Trust Act, served as a member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890 and successfully defended the constitution before the Senate and the Supreme Court; and
WHEREAS, both men are important figures who reflect similar times, but do not necessarily reflect the unified and progressive spirit encompassing the Mississippi of today, as it is Mississippi's sentimental desire to respect and celebrate the past while honoring its evolution from past icons to present icons; and
WHEREAS, on October 6, 1917, the world was blessed with the birth of an American voting rights advocate, civil rights leader and generous philanthropist, Fannie Lou Hamer, and now, the State of Mississippi, as well as the United States of America still revel in the progress and promise that she bestowed upon her fellow Mississippians and fellow Americans; and
WHEREAS, born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of 20 children born to Ella and James Lee Townsend, Fannie Lou and her family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on the plantation of W.D. Marlow, where she began picking cotton at the age of six; and
WHEREAS, Fannie Lou attended school in a one-room schoolhouse on the plantation from 1924 until 1930, but when the importance of her ability to pick 200 to 300 pounds of cotton daily outweighed the importance of her education, she was forced to drop out and toil in the fields all day, fortunately though, not before she had learned how to read and write; and
WHEREAS, her ability to read and write earned her the title of time and record keeper for the plantation in 1944, and in 1945, she married Perry "Pap" Hamer, and the two of them worked together on the plantation for the next 17 years, until Mrs. Hamer was fired for registering to vote; and
WHEREAS, beginning her trailblazing journey to help achieve equality for African Americans at the polling place in the 1950s, Mrs. Hamer attended several annual civil rights conferences in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where she became inspired from civil rights activists such as Mahalia Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan; and
WHEREAS, in 1961, Mrs. Hamer truly realized the importance of her pleas for equality and change in the South and across the nation when she entered an operating room to have a tumor removed, but left without a tumor or any reproductive organs, as the white doctor from Mississippi had given her a hysterectomy without her consent as part of the state's plan to reduce the number of poor African Americans located within its borders, a practice common in the South during that time; and
WHEREAS, as a result of her "Mississippi appendectomy," the phrase she coined for her egregiously uninformed and nonconsensual sterilization, Mr. and Mrs. Hamer were never able to have children of their own, but unwilling to let racism prohibit them from being parents, they later raised and eventually adopted two girls; and
WHEREAS, "sick and tired of being sick and tired," on August 23, 1962, after listening to an inspiring sermon from Reverend James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who encouraged African Americans to register to vote despite the hardships waiting for them at the polls, Mrs. Hamer did just that, as she was the first volunteer to register to vote; and
WHEREAS, on August 31, the courageous Mrs. Hamer traveled on a bus with other recipients of Reverend Bevel's sermon to Indianola, Mississippi, to register to vote, and to help calm the nerves of her fellow passengers and help them understand that what they were doing was the right thing, she sang Christian hymns, including "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "This Little Light of Mine"; and
WHEREAS, the day she registered to vote proved to be bittersweet for Mrs. Hamer, because after that bus ride to Indianola, she had finally registered to vote, the same right that all other Americans had and a step towards true equality, but upon her return to Marlow's plantation, she was fired for doing the one thing she had fought so hard to do; and
WHEREAS, her lack of employment ultimately benefitted the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, as the trials, tribulations and mostly, perseverance, reached the ears of Bob Moses, the SNCC organizer, who recruited her to perform activist work all over the South, with her base location remaining in Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, during one of her travel days, Mrs. Hamer and other activists were returning to Mississippi from a literacy workshop in Charleston, South Carolina, when they were stopped and falsely arrested in Winona, Mississippi, but the ugliness did not end there as once they were in jail, her colleagues were beaten by police in the booking room and she was taken to a cell where the police had ordered two other inmates to beat her with a blackjack, which they did until she nearly died; and
WHEREAS, after being falsely detained for three days, Mrs. Hamer was finally released from the cell that would haunt her for years to come, and her recovery from the brutal beating lasted for over a month, but despite her recurring physical and psychological problems that resulted from that horrendous incident, she bravely continued advocating in Mississippi and organizing voter registration drives, including the "Freedom Ballot Campaign" in 1963 and the "Freedom Summer" initiative in 1964; and
WHEREAS, in the summer of 1964, Mrs. Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or "Freedom Democrats," to challenge Mississippi's all-white, anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention, which failed to represent all Mississippians, and through her efforts, and her many, many inspirational speeches on the issue, in 1968, the Freedom Democrats were finally seated at the convention and the party adopted a clause that demanded equality of representation from their states' delegation; and
WHEREAS, in 1972, Mrs. Hamer was elected as a national party delegate, and throughout her life, she continued to work at the grassroots-level for programs such as Head Start, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign; and
WHEREAS, a day that will forever be associated with grief and sorrow in the minds and hearts of all Americans, on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59, complications from hypertension and breast cancer ended the life of our beloved civil rights leader, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, but her legacy of change and progress will continue to encourage young leaders in Mississippi and around the country for generations to come; and
WHEREAS, 2 USC Section 2132 allows a state to request the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve the removal of a previously placed statue from the collection and the replacement of it with an equally suitable and socially inclusive display that is representative of the entirety of the state's diverse citizenry; and
WHEREAS, if the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress approves a request, the architect of the Capitol shall enter into an agreement with the state to carry out the replacement in accordance with the request and any conditions that the Joint Committee may require for its approval, and such agreement shall
provide that the new statue shall be subject to the same conditions and restrictions as applied to any statue provided by a state under 2 USC Section 2131 and the state shall pay any costs related to the replacement, including costs in connection with the design, construction, transportation and placement of the new statue, the removal and transportation of the statue being replaced and any unveiling ceremony; and
WHEREAS, several states have chosen to replace existing statues, thereby including representations of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Thomas Edison and Helen Keller; and
WHEREAS, the Mississippi Legislature desires to replace the statue of James Zachariah George with a statue of civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer, to pay homage to such a selfless individual and honor and cherish the memory of this patron citizen of Mississippi, and to further reflect the transformative power of Mississippi from its past to its present; and
WHEREAS, we request the Governor of the State of Mississippi to affirm the efforts of this Legislature by issuing a proclamation or statement approving the request for the replacement of the statue, and to create a commission of Mississippi artisans and artists who are authorized to solicit and collect private contributions for the creation and placement of the statue of Fannie Lou Hamer; and
WHEREAS, it is incumbent upon this Legislature to pursue the interest of its citizens by ensuring that statues representing our state wholly reflect the astounding strides made by all citizens, particularly in this instance when the state itself bears the moniker of being the "birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement," and there has been no better ambassador of our state than the distinguished and incomparable Fannie Lou Hamer:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, THE SENATE CONCURRING THEREIN, That we do hereby submit this formal request to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve the replacement of the statue of James Zachariah George with a statue of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer in the Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be furnished to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, to the members of the Mississippi Congressional delegation and to the members of the Capitol Press Corps.