WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly

Abstract:

This article analyzes the musicality of activist Fannie Lou Hamer's speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. By theorizing her convention testimony as a protest song, I explore how Hamer used sonic techniques such as repetition, voice merging, and vernacular speech not only to argue for greater black representation at the convention but also to dismantle gendered hierarchies of political leadership and center black women's lives inside a utopic vision of the civil rights movement.