A Heap See But a Few Know!

Top of the weekend my friends! A heap see but a few know!

This week I attended the preview performance of the stage play based on the life of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer at the Bishop Arts Theatre in Dallas. It’s was a roller coaster of emotions!!

My friend Akin Babatunde (in photo) an accomplished actor, director, writer and lecturer in his own right. Along with the effective characterization, and dramatic artistry of Dallas native actress Liz Mikel. Brought to life, a nurturing approach that embodies the civil rights hero. It was priceless! Also a perfection you just gotta see to believe. A heap see but a few know!

Fannie Lou Hamer’s saga is a true story and a very real come to Jesus experience. A reminder of how our ancestors had to keep a song of faith to endured such atrocities with the belief that one day will shall overcome!

The mantra of Activist Fannie Lou Hamer life had to be “If God is for us who can be against us? As many of you are familiar with this verse from Romans 8:31. Most of us know the words to “We shall overcome”. However Liz puts it in your face! "Majestically"!

Quick history, for those who are unaware of Ms Hamer accomplishments. This share cropping Mississippi woman. Who was the last of the 20 children of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend family. Would emerge as a champion of women’s rights, racism, voting discrimination and a ray of hope for a very oppressed people fighting the villainous conspirators of human rights in Mississippi

At age 12 she had to leave school to help support her aging parents. By age 13, she would pick 200–300 pounds of cotton daily while living with polio.

Hamer and her husband wanted very much to start a family but in 1961, a white doctor subjected Hamer to a hysterectomy without her consent. While she was undergoing surgery to remove a uterine tumor. Forced sterilization was a common method of population control in Mississippi that targeted poor, African-American women.

After she got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, Hamer's oratorical skills quickly became apparent; leading activists were amazed at how she did not write her speeches but delivered them with such power from memory.

Hamer died of complications from hypertension and breast cancer on March 14, 1977, aged 59.? She was buried in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. Her tombstone is engraved with one of her famous quotes, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired" But not any more (the above quotes from Wikipedia).?

Ms Fannie Lou Hamer is wearing her crown as we read. The Black sharecropper from Mississippi who changed the world! A heap see but now a few more know!

Donut ever forget it and go witness it for yourself at the Bishop Arts Theatre in Dallas.