C. Weatherford: Hi, this is Carole Boston Weatherford, and I'm the author of Voice of Freedom, Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. I'm going to tell you a bit about how I came to write this book, and then I'll share an excerpt with you. My mission as an author is to mine the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. Fannie Lou Hamer fits in the latter category. A women of courage and conviction, Fannie Lou Hamer fought for voting rights and economic opportunities.

Her spread in my 2010 book, The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights gave me goosebumps every time I read it. Perhaps she was prodding me to conjure her voice and tell her story. And now I will read an excerpt to you. The excerpt is from the poem, On the Move.

On the ride home a policeman stopped our bus to arrest the driver on account of the yellow bus looked too much like a school bus. A phony charge if I ever heard one. We emptied our pockets, scraped together $30 towards the bogus fine. Back at the plantation, my boss had already set my stuff in the road. Said, they wasn't ready for that in Mississippi. He gave me a choice, withdraw my name at the courthouse, or move on.

All I could say was, "I didn't go down there to register for you, I was down there to register for myself."