EnPointe Tutoring and Learning Services

On the afternoon of June 12, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and several others were released from a Winona, Miss. jail after being arrested, falsely charged and savagely beaten three days earlier on June 9th. The law enforcement officials had spoken of killing Hamer and the voting rights activists and throwing them in the river. They were released on bond however, after the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers at his home in Jackson, Miss. hours earlier. All of the officers involved in beating Hamer and the others were found not guilty in federal court. Evers' death saved their lives.

Photo: A postage stamp honoring Evers and Hamer was released in February 2009. The two were pictured together at the request of Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams.

I am a house slave born Akiwa renamed Sara
I have birthed two of my slave owners' children
My fairer skin and features made me appealing to him
And I had no choice but to give myself for my own safety
My children have even fairer skin
They look more like him than me
So they don't know I'm Their mother
or their beautiful history
His wife could not bear children so mine became hers
And it breaks my heart watching them grow
Knowing the things they could never know
But I watch them as they learn to read
and do as the owner does
And I kept silent out of a mother's love
Knowing nothing good could come from the truth
They treat me as a slave sometimes even with unkind words even though from me they came
But for their sake I speak no words
So that their freedom will always remain without knowing a slaves pain

(Krys Jehan)