The woman a President tried to silence + what it means for your work

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)

I’ve never met a white friend who knows Fannie Lou Hamer’s story. And I’ve never met a black friend who doesn’t. Over the next four weeks, we’ll study how this remarkable sharecropper-turned-activist followed Jesus in her work and extract lessons for our own jobs today. Let’s begin by parachuting into one of the most dramatic scenes of her life.

Election Day 1964 was three months away, but President Lyndon B. Johnson wasn’t worried about his Republican opponent. The greatest threat to his presidency was Fannie Lou Hamer testifying at the Democratic National Convention, AKA the DNC.

For weeks, Johnson did everything he could to stop her. He had the FBI tap her phones and pressured DNC leaders behind the scenes. But it was no use. On August 22, the DNC decided America needed to hear Hamer’s testimony.

At 3:00 p.m., Hamer took the stand, and the nation tuned in to watch her testify live. But just before she could share the most horrific parts of her story, the broadcast abruptly cut out. Desperate to silence her, Johnson called an impromptu White House press conference.

Reporters rushed to cover what they assumed would be a major announcement. But a minute in, it became clear Johnson had nothing to say. He had, however, accomplished his real goal: keeping Hamer off air.

Or so he thought.

Though the networks didn’t carry Hamer’s testimony live, their cameras kept rolling. And on that evening’s news, they aired her testimony in full to a much larger audience.

That night, the nation heard the true story of how Fannie Lou Hamer was falsely imprisoned, brutally beaten by police, and shot at sixteen times all for having the audacity to register to vote—an act, of course, which was perfectly legal.

Hamer’s testimony helped pave the way for protecting African Americans’ right to vote. But what’s even more remarkable than what she accomplished is how she did her work. Though she suffered staggering injustice, she is never recorded as speaking a single word of hate toward her perpetrators. Instead, she prayed for her enemies, in obedience to Jesus’s command.

With today’s passage and Hamer’s example in mind, let me encourage you to ask two questions this morning.

First, who “hates, curses, or mistreats” you at work? Maybe it’s a co-worker who steals credit, a boss who violates work/life boundaries and expects you to be “always on,” or a customer who hates everything you stand for.

Second, how can you “do good” to that person today per Jesus’s command? At a minimum, stop and pray right now that God would bless your enemy just as he blessed you with eternal life when you were his enemy (see Romans 5:1).

Hamer used to say, “You can’t love God and hate.” Take action to love those who hate you at work today.