Shortly after her son, James Chaney was murdered in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 along with Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, Fannie Lee Chaney gave an address in which she vowed to continue the struggle for racial justice in her home state.  She also announced that 12 year old Ben Chaney, already a civil rights activist who had been jail, would take his deceased brother’s place in the movement.  Her speech, originally published in Freedomways in 1965, appears below.

I am here to tell you about Meridian, Mississippi. Thats my home. I have been there all of my days. I know the white man; I know the black man. The white man is not for the black man we are just there. Everything to be done, to be said, the white man is going to do it; he is going to say it, right or wrong. We hadnt, from the time that I know of, been able to vote or register in Meridian. Now, since the civil rights workers have been down in Mississippi working, they have allowed a lot of them to go to register. A lot of our people are scared, afraid. They are still backward. I cant do that; I never have, they claimed. I have been here too long. I will lose my job; I wont have any job. So, that is just the way it is. My son, James, when he went out with the civil rights workers around the first of 64 felt it was something he wanted to do, and he enjoyed working in the civil rights Movement. He stayed in Canton, Mississippi, working on voter registration from February, through March. When he came home he told me how he worked and lived those few weeks he was there; he said, Mother, one half of the time, I was out behind houses or churches waiting to get the opportunity to talk to people about what they needed and what they ought to do. He said, Sometime they shunned me off and some would say ‘I want you all to stay away from here and leave me alone. But he would pick his chance and go back again. That what I say about Mississippi right now. There is one more test I want to do there. I am working with the civil rights