There are Freedom Trail markers scattered all across Mississippi paying tribute to significant people, places and events during the Civil Rights Movement. And now, there’s one in another state– New Jersey. The Mississippi Humanities Council unveiled the marker during a ceremony Tuesday on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. It honors the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and its efforts to be recognized as the state’s official delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. In fact, it was 60 years ago Thursday when Montgomery County native Fannie Lou Hamer tried to convince the credentials committee at the convention that it was the right thing to do. She said, “If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America.”
Hamer’s group was eventually offered two seats at the convention with the state’s regular, all-white Democratic delegation getting the rest. Hamer’s famous reply: “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats.”
Gov. Reeves was on hand for the Freedom Trail marker dedication in Atlantic City and posted this on Facebook: “In the darkest moments of our nation’s shared history, we find sources of light in the bravery of individual Mississippians!”
