Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Until I Am Free with Dr. Keisha N. Blain

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

In this episode, Dr. Keisha Blain joins Sharon to talk about voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. In her new book, Until I Am Free, Dr. Blain chronicles the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, a change-maker who has been set on the back shelf of history. Fannie Lou gave a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1964 at a time when Black voter suppression and violence against Black Americans was practiced across the country, especially in the South. Learn about how the Civil Rights Movement isn’t an event we can leave to history, but a significant era that’s still impacting Black American voters today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello friends! So happy you're here today. I'm chatting with Dr. Keisha Blain about her new book called Until I Am Free. And I think you will love this book. It is about a civil rights hero. One of those women who is kind of sometimes relegated to the back shelves of history, but shouldn't be. Her name is Fannie Lou Hamer, and I think you will find her message incredibly inspirational, uplifting, and also eye-opening. So let's dive into my conversation with Dr. Keisha Blain. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Dr. Blaine, thank you so much for joining me today. I am absolutely delighted to chat with you. Thank you so much for having me. I read with interest, with great interest, your new book. And I knew that the people who listened to this podcast would find

the subject of this book fascinating. So can you start just by introducing yourself, and then we'll talk more about some of the things that are in your new work? Sure. Well, my name is Keisha Blain, and I teach history at the University of Pittsburgh. I'm particularly interested in 20th century U.S. history, African-American history, and the modern African diaspora. I have written several books before this one. My first book is called Set the World on Fire. It's on Black nationalist women, primarily in the U.S., but also across the globe. And this new book, which I've just published, is on civil rights. Fannie Lou Hamer really fits within the larger themes of my

research. I tend to focus on Black women's history. I'm interested in global politics, as well as national politics, and try as much as possible to center the ideas and experiences of individuals who we generally do not know much about. I relate to that so much. That is my personal interest in history, too. I mean, George Washington is an interesting historic character, but there's approximately 12,000 books written. Right. Right. I would love to know why you settled on her, Fannie Lou Hamer, as a subject. What made her interesting to you?

So many reasons. I think as a historian, I tend to encounter historical figures who are interesting for a range of reasons, but it's not every day that you read about someone, you know, their speeches and somehow they have the ability to move you, you know, somewhat one might say even beyond the grave. And so that was the case for Fannie Lou Hamer. I was taking a class on the civil rights movement as an undergraduate, and it was actually my senior year in college. And I was absolutely stunned to

come across this woman, one, because I had never heard of her, which I found surprising, given that I had been taking all these history courses. But the other thing, too, is that I was so moved by her speech. Even today, we'll come across her powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. And that speech gave me chills. I mean, it was really remarkable to see this working poor Black woman in this setting, speaking truth to power, I mean, calling out racism, talking about the challenges that Black people were facing, and doing it in such a raw and honest way, that left a mark on me. And particularly, I was inspired by her story as a Black woman from the Mississippi Delta, someone who had, you know, limited formal education, someone who was disabled, someone who had limited formal education, someone who was disabled, someone who had so many challenges, who faced so many challenges, yet she pushed beyond them to make a difference in the lives of others. And it started to force me to think about myself. And I started to wonder,

what could I do to make a difference in this world? What are my skills and abilities? How can I use my voice, my research, my writing to make a difference? And so Fannie Lou Hamer was transformative for me, as I think she will be for many people who encounter her story. I remember reading that she was, you know, like the youngest of 20 children and born into truly extraordinary poverty. And then when she went to vote, encountered a literacy test. Can you tell us more about her experiences leading up to her activism in the civil rights movement? Absolutely. As you pointed out, Fannie Lou Hamer was born into a sharecropping family, and that meant particularly having a life that closely mirrored the institution of slavery.

And of course, we know that slavery had ended with the passage of the 13th Amendment. And yet, in replace of slavery, white landowners introduced a system of sharecropping, which effectively left Black people in a system of dependency and debt. effectively left Black people in a system of dependency and debt. And Hamer worked on the plantation. You know, one of the things that's so shocking was that Hamer was lured into a life of sharecropping initially because she was only six years old when the white landowner approached her and said, you know, I will give you candy from the store if you would pick cotton. As a six-year-old, you know, that seemed like a fair bargain. She'd be able to get some treats that she liked. Of course, it was a trick. And when she started picking cotton at the age of six, she effectively never stopped. And this played a huge role in her life. She worked on the plantation. She did

manage to attend school, but was unable to stay in school for a long time. She ultimately received about a sixth grade education, had to drop out in order to help her family on the plantation. And so all she knew was sharecropping. What she knew was life in the Mississippi Delta, which was very difficult, as you can imagine, at the age of 44, that Hamer found out about her right to vote as a citizen of the United States. She said that when she attended a mass meeting in August 1962, she was stunned to hear activists who had been there organizing from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to hear them talk about the Reconstviolent Coordinating Committee to hear them talk about the Reconstruction Amendments, to hear them talk about the fact that Black people could cast a ballot, and the fact that Black people could overturn decades of, you know, racist laws and policies.

And she was moved by that and decided immediately that she would join the fight, that she would become a civil rights activist, but she also quickly volunteered to register to vote. And not surprisingly, when she made that first attempt in 62, she encountered resistance. And one of the forms of resistance was in the form of the liturgist test. And as I said, Hamer had a sixth grade education. Here she was being asked very detailed questions about the state constitution. She did not know the answer to those questions. And so she failed the test. And as we know, those were strategies meant to keep black people from voting. And so that was her first experience. But it certainly was not the only. she would keep trying. And, you know, as I detail in the book, she endured a lot of violence simply because she was trying to not only register herself to vote, but she was trying to

register other people to vote. That is fascinating that she had never learned that she had the right to vote. Why do you think that was? Well, there are several reasons. You know, Hamer emphasized the fact that she was certainly living in a remote area. And, you know, as she would emphasize, it was often difficult to get access to different kinds of information. And the reality is that within the, you know, the context of Jim Crow South, white supremacists worked really hard to ensure that Black people wouldn't have full access to many things, not only material resources, but information. They made sure that someone like Hamer would not actually know what her rights were

as guaranteed by the Constitution, because of course, once you know what your rights are, you will try to exercise those rights. You will certainly fight to do so once you are aware. And so keeping people disconnected from the information, making sure that people were unaware of what their rights are became a powerful strategy, which is similar in the context of slavery. When you think about all of the efforts to make sure that enslaved people did not learn how to read or write. I mean, that was a way to certainly prevent people from organizing and strategizing to resist. But it was also a way to keep them from even thinking broadly about even human rights, you know, about freedom. I mean, of course, it didn't work. People, I think, innately understood, there's something wrong with this system. Right. I mean, you know, and so they did resist still, even when people withheld information.

But but it was, I think, a strategy that persisted in the context of Hamer's life, always an attempt to keep her from knowing the truth. thankfully she she did find out through the context of the organizers in the student non-violent coordinating committee and that's exactly why civil rights groups were viewed as a threat for so many people because they came with information I mean they came to let people know these are your rights and we're here to make sure that you can actually vote in this instance so so it was transformative for Hamer as it, as it were for so many Black people living in the South at the time. The, the idea that information itself, just the possession of information was something that was seen as, um, we, we can be violent against you because you have this information. Living in the information age, so many people today, that idea seems ludicrous. Like we can literally, we have the

entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips in the form of a phone. And the idea that you could be the victim of violence because you were in possession of information. And the fact that that was not that long ago is just, I think, so it's so important for us to understand about what information has meant to people. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It's my girl in the studio!

There's my girl in the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. For people who maybe are realizing, and I know that this is some of the people in my audience

that like, wow, when I attended school, I did not learn about this, this, this, this, this. I feel like a lot of adults today are realizing that the education they received perhaps was not the full picture of U.S. history. Perhaps they only learned a small little, like we memorized 1776 and the 4th of July. And, you know, like we have a narrow view of the true history of this nation. Would you spend just one or two minutes telling us about sharecropping, Jim Crow literacy tests, and other forms of voter suppression that were prevalent throughout the South during that timeframe? Absolutely. And I think, you know, your point is such a valid one because I teach college courses and so many of my students come into the class and admit to me that they don't

know much about the history, that they had not heard of it. And there can often be a feeling of shame, but I say to students, many people have this experience for a wide array of reasons, depending on where you attended school, depending on when you attended school, would have a difference, would make a difference in terms of the information that you have on any given subject. But I think one of the things that's so important to understand within the context of the Jim Crow South is that Black people were ultimately placed in a position where you can only describe their circumstances as being treated as second class citizens. what the Jim Crow system did beyond simply enforcing actual segregation and separation of races, what was also ensuring that people of African descent would have limited access to an array of things, and particularly in the realm of education, as we're talking about today, in order to ensure that they would not have much social mobility. When people found

ways to move beyond the limitations, as they often did through, you know, creativity and, you know, other kinds of strategies, the response was violence. And here's where we understand how lynching functioned within the Jim Crow South, as it did across the nation, as a strategy, as a tool for keeping people in their place, so to speak, and keeping Black people from, you know, striving for more for themselves and their families. When it came to Mississippi in particular, this was one of the most violent places. In fact, if you look at the statistics Chicago who was killed while visiting family in Mississippi. And I think it's important to understand that this was the context in which someone like Hamer grew up. You know, this is the context in which she was living in an environment where one could not even address a white person in any kind of way. I mean, just simply looking at someone a particular way or responding in a particular way could lead to the loss of life. I mean, that's how dangerous

it was in the context. And so in terms of the strategies, so certainly violence became a strategy to keep people out of the ballot box, but also other strategies, which effectively were legal strategies, meaning that, yes, they were unconstitutional, as we are very clear about in a way we can talk about it now. But at the statewide level, there were all of these policies, including, you know, the literacy test, grandfather clauses. So essentially looking for loopholes whereby people who are supposed to have the right to vote would be blocked. And these are, I mean, they were unfair. And in fact, if you think of someone like Rosa Parks shared how many times she would go to take the literacy test and would keep failing.

The irony is that even when you supposedly could pass and you actually knew the answers, guess what? The clerk would find a way to say you failed because it wasn't about actually passing the test. It was about making sure that you did not succeed in being able to cast a ballot. succeed in being able to cast a ballot. That had huge consequences for Mississippi in particular, because by the early 1960s, only 5% of the Black population of Mississippi were registered to vote. We're talking about 5% of an estimated 450,000 people in one state not having a voice, not being able to shape policies, not being able to shape laws, and certain aspects of their lives are being shaped and decided, decisions are being made for them by individuals who don't have their best interests at heart. And so these were the

circumstances that gave rise to someone like Fannie Lou Hamer, recognizing how unfair it was to be supposedly a citizen of the United States, but not actually have access to all the rights and privileges, and then facing violence and resistance when seeking those rights and privileges. She set out to overturn the system, certainly wanted to dismantle Jim Crow, that was key, but also particularly to expand Black voting rights. And as I point out in the book, she played an instrumental role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which radically changed politics in America. I mean, of course, talking about it to this very day, because there's so many attacks on the Voting Rights Act. But the reason why people are attacking it so much is because of its power. You know, we, we understand historically how it transformed black politics in particular. Yeah. I mean, like the, like you were mentioning

the percentage of black voters in Mississippi in the early 1960s was five, 6%. And then after the passage of the voting rights act, by the end of the 1960s, it was like close to 60%. And that just showed the impact that one law had on people's ability to affect change in their own and their own state. So I think it's important for people to understand too, that a literacy test is not, it's not like a standardized test that a child gets in school where you read a sentence and choose answer C is the correct answer. You spell the word there in such a manner in this context. It's not that kind of a literacy test. Many times they were asking very detailed questions that the vast majority of citizens of any race would not be able to answer. Like you were saying, asking questions about details about

the state constitution, which by the way, the majority of Americans could not pass a quote unquote literacy test about their state constitution the day who reads their state constitution. Literally. I mean, unless you're an attorney and that's your job, I can almost promise you that almost nobody reads their state constitution. And it's written in legal language. It's not accessible to people who even have a bachelor's degree in the United States in 2021. You know, as you were talking, it made me think about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which Fannie Lou Hamer helped to establish, which was so important. And at the time, so we're talking about 1964.

And at the time, the state of Mississippi, and this is true for other southern states at the time, ultimately excluded Black participation. So we're talking about a Democratic Party that was only that was supposed to represent the entire state, you know, only involving white people. And we've already discussed implications of that for black people's lives. When Fang Lehmert pointed out this problem and said, listen, we need to have a party that represents the full diversity, you know, of the state, some of the responses were, listen, you know, black people are not interested in politics, you know, even if they were given full access to vote, they wouldn't vote anyways. And so you have all of these completely false statements being made. And one of the things that Fannie Lou Hamer was able to do through the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was to demonstrate that, in fact, Black people had a lot of interest in voting. Once they knew about the power of the

vote, they were eager to exercise it. And so the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party held a mock election, a mock election that gave people in the community the opportunity to come out and cast a ballot. And when you take a look at those numbers, I mean, so many people participated and she and her colleagues were able to say, look, it's not a question of interest. People are interested. It's a question of access. People are being blocked. And if you would remove the blockages and then guess what would happen? People would show up as they absolutely did after the Voting Rights Act and people would show up. And not only would they show up to vote, you know, they would run for office, they would play an active role in electoral politics. And so she was able, I think, to reveal the hypocrisy of all of it. And of course, did so again, when she showed up at the Democratic National Convention, she brings up this very same issue about, you know, voter suppression and, and the challenges that black people are facing. But you're absolutely right. It's, it's some, some days, you know, I marvel, not only at the fact, as you point out, it is so close. I mean, I'm talking about Fannie Lou Hamer, and every single day, I'm meeting someone who knew her,

someone who, right, I mean, who I just, some days, I'm just thinking, wow, this is surreal. But there are, I mean, there are relatives, there are friends or people who are telling me, you know, I remember driving her around in Chicago and, you know, and I'm thinking, wow, you know, it's 2021, she passed away in 1977. So this, this history that we're talking about, you know, it's, it's so close. It's so close. And it just I think it's important for people to to reflect on that, because I think when we talk about today, the challenges of voter suppression, you know, we have to recognize that, you know, all of these stories are connected. in the past. And now it's emerged again. No, in so many ways, it feels like a continuation of the struggle from the sixties and seventies. And we have to, to fight, I think, to, to protect those rights still. Yeah. None of this exists in a vacuum. It wasn't like, well, we had the civil rights movement and now that has ended and we don't have to worry about any of that anymore because we closed that chapter.

You know what I mean? I feel like that is how some Americans, probably not anybody listening to this, but that's how some Americans feel like that was a long time ago. We fixed it. Basically we took our rubber stamp, fixed it and it we're good to go. Like we said it and forget it. You know what I mean? Like the infomercial, the infomercial rotisserie oven said it and forget it. You know what I mean? And I think it's important for people to understand that, that your, our rights are not set it and forget it. Right. And they're not set it and forget it for anybody. They're certainly not set it and forget it for people who continue for continue to struggle throughout the 1960s to gain access to their con something. They were guaranteed under the constitution

nearly a hundred years prior. I would love to hear more about the title of your book. And the title of your book is until I am free. What did that mean to Fannie Lou Hamer? Wow. I think it comes from quite frankly, it is perhaps the most powerful statement that I think Hamer made. And, and, And as I explained, she was a remarkable speaker and just passionate in her delivery. And she had a lot of catchy phrases too that stayed with people. But she would say, whether you are Black or white, you are not free until I am free. Or sometimes she would say it another way, nobody's free until everybody's free. Or sometimes she would say it another way, nobody's free until everybody's free. And I think this is a message that's so powerful today. It's a way in which she was constantly trying to get people, particularly within the U.S. context, trying to get Americans to see themselves as part of a whole, right? And to get away from just the individualistic perspective, we still struggle to this very day. You know, when we make decisions, I think it's easy to focus on what I need as an

individual or my perspective. You know, there's a lot of focus on the individual. But Hamer was trying to say that we're all connected, even if we come from different backgrounds, even if we are of different races, different socioeconomic status, or what have you, we are connected. We are part of this national polity. And that means that if one person is in chains, that should be a problem for all of us, right? We can't truly experience liberation if our brother or sister, right, someone sitting next to us is in chains. How do you how do you actually enjoy freedom when you look to the side and see someone who's bound? And so that was the essence of that statement is to get people to realize that we cannot be thinking individualistically. Our fates are connected. And so we have to be thinking about how to make this nation better

and to make it better. It means making sure that every single person, regardless of their background, have an opportunity to not only exist in this nation, but to thrive. And so we have to make it better for someone else, right? Even if we feel like, you know, we don't have any problems. And obviously we all have our own challenges, but I, I think it forces us to move away from the, okay, well, I didn't experience it. So it's not a, it's not my problem. Well, no, you didn't experience it, but your, your neighbor did. So that's a problem. And it should be your concern that your neighbor's going through that. I think it calls for empathy, certainly, but it calls for a sort of a shared unity and

collective vision that I think we need more of, quite frankly, today. I would love to hear more about your perspective as a historian about why history forgets some people and not others. Why are some people like Fannie Lou Hamer, um, not taught about in schools? Obviously we can't teach about everybody that's ever existed. I mean, yeah, I acknowledge as a teacher that there are limitations to how much time we have in the classroom, but why do some people who had a significant impact get relegated to, you know, like you got to dig them up in a crusty old card catalog. Why are some people given that status and other people, we have a thousand documentaries made about them. Do you have any insight about that? Yes. I think there are various

factors. When it comes to the civil rights movement in particular, one of the things that I think is clear when you look at the literature, when you look at what people tend to focus on, you see the ways that we tend to, I think, elevate certain leaders who we think we can present to the world as sometimes perfect, you know, perfect figures. And here I'm talking about, I'm thinking about someone like Rosa Parks, right? I mean, Rosa Parks, her story is a lot more complex than we tend to present. So mainstream narratives will always, you know, say to us, Rosa Parks was just a tired older lady

having a rough day at work. And then she was asked to give up her seat and she didn't. And then of course we know what followed and the boycott and everything. We don't really talk about the fact that Rosa Parks had been an activist for many years leading up to that period. And it wasn't just like she felt tired. No, she was part of a collective effort to challenge these laws. So it was not as spontaneous in the way that we tried to, you know, overemphasize. And then we don't talk about Claudette Colvin, who was 15 years old, who also did something courageous, like Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks did, you know, she also didn't give up her seat. And she was forced off a bus. And because she decided that it was wrong, you know, to be asked to give a receipt for a white person.

Well, we don't talk about her because she was 15 and also because she got pregnant shortly thereafter. And there was this notion that, you know, are you going to put before the world a teenage mom as the figure of the movement? as the figure of the movement, right? I mean, so here's where, you know, we can talk about this notion of respectability politics, whereby certain people get handpicked as leaders. And it's true, even in the way we write the history, we tend to focus on certain people because we're looking for these perfect icons.

And the truth is no one is perfect. Even when we try to present them as perfect, no one is perfect. But also what we fail to acknowledge is that leaders come from, you know, different places and spaces and leaders don't all look the same. Everyone's not going to be in a suit and tie. Everyone's not going to have a college education. You know, we may feel comfortable having the person, you know, representing a group, have a PhD or what have you. Maybe that seems like a powerful move. But sometimes it'll

be the person with a sixth grade education who just has a passion and a vision. And they too need to be valued and respected. So I think when it comes to the way we write history, the way we tell history, we do have a tendency to privilege certain people oftentimes because of their social status because of their their education quite frankly even because of their looks I'd say to people it's not lost on me I mean Fannie Lou Haver you know was a heavyset black woman Fannie Lou Haver was a disabled black woman you know she didn't you know when you hear when you heard her speak she spoke from her heart but know, she didn't sound as polished as other individuals that made some people uncomfortable. And I think even how we write the history, that may not always be the person who we want to focus on.

We may want to focus on the person who comes off as more polished and refined. I mean, I think it speaks to our own misconceptions and limitations, quite frankly. Thankfully, I think, you know, historians are telling more and more of these stories. You know, I'm certainly not the only person writing about Hamer, which is a good thing. I think it's wonderful that more people are writing about her, as well as an array of other activists. But my sense is that it comes from our own sort of collective insecurities about who we think of as the perfect leader, you know, the perfect face of the movement. And we tend to focus on those individuals. That's such an interesting way to

put it and such an interesting thing to think about that the, the people that we hold up in history are the people that we feel comfortable holding up, that it's about our own comfort level. And that's in part why they're elevated to certain statuses and some other people, perhaps we feel less comfortable through a, for a variety of reasons. Like you said, like a teen mom or somebody's looks or their, how able-bodied they are. We just intrinsically feel less, less comfortable putting them up as sort of this paragon of like, of, you know, here's who are our leaders of this movement should be, or were that is very interesting way of putting it. I would love to hear what would you love for people to take away from this book, from this story, from her story? What would you

love for people to know about Fannie Lou Hamer? Well, I hope that people take from her story, you know, certainly a source of inspiration. I want people, by the time they finish reading the book, I want them to be looking inward and asking themselves, what can I do? What can I contribute? It's very easy to focus on what we don't have. And, you know, I'm often guilty of that, saying, well, I don't have certain resources, or I don't have certain access in these certain, you know, these spaces. Yes, all that could be true. But I think the better question is, what do we have? And it could be small, you know, it could be that you don't have many, you don't have much material resources, but maybe you have a particular

gift, or maybe you were just really good at bringing people together, you know, maybe, maybe that's your skill, right? And so how do you use whatever it is you have, in order to move things forward in a positive direction, I think the most dangerous place to be, is to be a spectator, I think it's, it's a dangerous thing, where you're sort of going through life, looking around you and thinking, wow, you know, look, what's happening in this nation, look, what's happening in the world, and thinking, wow, you know, look what's happening in this nation. Look what's happening in the world and so many problems. If only I could do something. Well, yes, you can, in fact, because someone like Fannie Will Hamer could have easily said, I have nothing to offer. You know, here I am in the Mississippi Delta. I hardly have any material resources. I don't

have the education, the experience, the access. And she could have just put up her hands, but she didn't. She decided that what she did have was a voice. What she did have was love in her heart and a passion and a drive to make a difference. And she just used, she started there and was able to build and build and build. And in doing so, she left a legacy that we were able to now have a conversation about her, you know, years after her passing. And so I think that, you know, I certainly hope that when people read the book, they will learn about Hamer, they will be inspired by her, and then it would propel them to start thinking strategically about how they too can make a difference, whether it's in their community, whether it's on a national level. And the book offers all of these interesting, I think,

strategies that, you know, that Hamer employed that might resonate with us in some way. And we can see possibilities for what we can do specific spheres of influence. So that's my hope. I love that. I really love that. That is amazing. I love the idea too, that nobody can do everything. It's actually not your job to do everything. That's not possible, but everyone can do something. And it can be a something very small. It could be, you know, I don't have a lot of resources, but what I, what I can do is talk to my neighbors and offer to watch their kids while they go vote, or I can help register people or, and it doesn't have to necessarily even be politically, but there is something we can all

do to improve our communities. You don't have to do it all, but everyone can do something. And I love that she absolutely embodied that, that she took what she had, where she was with the resources available to her and propelled them into something much larger. Here we are 44 years after her death, talking about her, writing books about her. She likely thought, wow, I don't know if these contributions that I have are going to make a difference. She probably didn't think that 44 years in the future, people would be historians would be studying her and people would be talking about her on NPR and in bookstores and on podcasts. And like that probably would blow her mind, right? Like that we're having this conversation about her today, but it just goes to show the impact that small actions can have on the world. I absolutely love that.

Tell everybody where they can find you and tell us one more time about the name of your book and where we can find it. Yes. So my book is entitled Until I Am Free, Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America. And I currently teach history at the University of Pittsburgh, but people can find me easily on the web. I'm also on social media. So you can find me on Twitter or also on Instagram. So feel free to get in touch with me. And is your handle Keisha Blaine? Yes, on Twitter, it's at Keisha Blaine. And on Instagram, Keisha and Blaine. I love this. And I absolutely love the message of the book. I fell in love with her as a character.

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