AMERICAN DISSENTERS: FANNIE LOU HAMER

Fifty years ago, civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer spoke before the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City—and her speech became one of the most pivotal moments of the Civil Rights Movement.

Remembering Civil Rights Heroine Fannie Lou Hamer: ‘I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired’

Session 1. Empty Altars: Visionaries & Prophets

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Streamed live on Feb 27, 2023

58:12 - Mother Ann Lee

1:14:58 - Fannie Lou Hamer

This is session one for "Empty Altars: American Saints in a Cynical Age" with Diana Butler Bass & Tripp Fuller. To join the open online Lenten class head over to www.EmptyAltars.com

 

Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up | MPB

Mississippi Public Broadcasting

Oct 5, 2017 

Civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer is remembered by those who worked side by side with her in the struggle for voting rights. An African-American sharecropper from the Mississippi Delta, Hamer’s difficulty registering to vote in 1962 led to her career as an outspoken activist, congressional candidate, and fierce fighter for the rights of all.

Learn more at http://www.mpbonline.org

 

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Fannie Lou Hamer

article link

FROM THE COLLECTION: WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the 20th child of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend, sharecroppers east of the Mississippi Delta. She first joined her family in the cotton fields at the age of six. Although she managed to complete several years of school, by adolescence she was picking hundreds of pounds of cotton a day. In the early 1940s she married Perry Hamer, known as Pap, and worked alongside him at W.D. Marlow’s plantation near Ruleville, in Sunflower County. Hamer’s ability to read and write earned her the job of timekeeper, a less physically demanding and more prestigious job within the sharecropping system.

Hamer in her home, summer 1964. Credit: Corbis/Steve Schapiro

The Hamers adopted two daughters, girls whose own families were unable to care for them. (They later adopted their two grandchildren after the older daughter’s death.) Hamer’s own pregnancies had all failed, and she was sterilized without her knowledge or consent in 1961. She was given a hysterectomy while in the hospital for minor surgery, a procedure so common it was known as a “Mississippi appendectomy.” “[In] the North Sunflower County Hospital, I would say about six out of the 10 Negro women that go to the hospital are sterilized with the tubes tied,” she told a Washington, DC, audience three years later.

The forced sterilization was one of the moments that set Hamer on the path to the forefront of the Mississippi Civil Rights movement, but the incident that brought her into a leadership role came a year later. On August 31, 1962, not long after attending a voting rights meeting organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer joined 17 of her neighbors on a bus to Indianola, the county seat. Officials blocked most of the group from even attempting to register; Hamer and one man were the only ones allowed to fill out the application and take the literacy test, which both failed.

On the drive back to Ruleville, the bus was stopped and the driver arrested -- the bus was too yellow, the police claimed. While the passengers were held on the bus, the deeply religious Hamer began to sing spirituals. Singing, in particular, “This Little Light of Mine” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” became one of the defining features of her activism.

When the passengers scraped together enough money to cover the driver’s fine, the bus was allowed to return to Ruleville. When Hamer got home, she found that plantation owner W.D.

Sitting on a porch, summer 1964. Credit: USM

Marlow was already aware that she had tried to register to vote. He demanded that she withdraw her application. She refused, with an explanation that would become a familiar refrain in her Civil Rights speeches: “I didn’t go down there to register for you. I went down to register for myself.” Marlow ordered her off his land.

Hamer stayed with friends in Ruleville for a few days, but it was clear that there would be reprisals against the people who had gone to Indianola. Pap drove Hamer and their daughters to Tallahatchie County, where they stayed with rural relatives for some time before returning to Sunflower County, ready to take up the fight.

Her singing on the bus and her willingness to challenge the county registrar had been noticed by local organizers, and SNCC field secretary Bob Moses saw her as a potential leader. He sent Charles McLaurin, a young activist, to find Hamer and bring her to a SNCC conference at Fisk University in Nashville in the fall of 1962. The conference was a success, and Hamer left Nashville eager to take on her new role as a community organizer.

Pap Hamer had stayed at the Marlow plantation, working through the harvest to pay off the family’s sharecropping debt, but in the fall of 1962 he rejoined his wife and daughters. Marlow took possession of the Hamers’ car, as well as the contents of the house they had rented from him, so they started over in Ruleville. The family’s main source of income was Hamer’s $10 weekly stipend from SNCC.

Through 1962 and 1963, Hamer continued to work for desegregation and voter registration. She would also become involved in relief work, distributing donated food and clothes to the poorest Delta residents. Hamer had spent her entire life in poverty, and she understood that the fight for economic security was a crucial component of the Civil Rights movement. At the same time, she was willing to use the donations as leverage, and sometimes refused to hand over food until the recipients agreed to register to vote.

On June 9, 1963, Hamer and several fellow activists were returning from a citizenship training program in Charleston, South Carolina, when their bus stopped in Winona, Mississippi. In an act of protest, several members of the group sat at the bus station’s whites-only lunch counter. Before long the police removed them from the café, arresting six people.

After being beaten in jail, June 1963. Credit: FBI

In jail, several of the activists were beaten by the police and by other African American inmates, whom the police forced to use blackjack weapons. The damage done to Hamer’s eyes, legs, and kidneys would affect her for the rest of her life.

When the activists did not check in with the SNCC office that afternoon, organizers knew they were in trouble. It took several days -- and the arrest and beating of Lawrence Guyot, another SNCC worker -- before they were finally released on June 12. After they left the jail, Hamer and her colleagues learned that Medgar Evers had been assassinated on the front steps of his Jackson, MS home the previous day. As the NAACP field secretary, Evers had been the driving force behind the admission of the first black student to the University of Mississippi.

Representing the MFDP. Credit: Methodist Church Global Ministries/Kenneth Thompson

In the following months, Hamer increased her public profile, both through her SNCC work and as one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the dominant force in Mississippi politics, the pro-segregation Democratic Party. In early 1964, Hamer ran for Congress as the MFDP candidate. She challenged veteran Congressman Jamie Whitten in the Democratic primary. Though Whitten won with an overwhelming majority, Hamer’s run set a precedent by challenging the established Mississippi congressional delegation, and set the stage for the MFDP to have a national presence.

The work of MFDP was one part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer, which brought hundreds of college students to the state to work for Civil Rights. Although some SNCC organizers were wary of bringing in a group of outsiders, mostly whites from the North, Hamer saw value in an integrated movement and convinced many to abandon their objections. “If we’re trying to break down this barrier of segregation, we can’t segregate ourselves,” she said in a SNCC meeting.

Hamer traveled to Oxford, Ohio, to train the volunteers who would be teaching classes and registering voters -- and to sing the spirituals and movement songs she was known for. Tracy Sugarman, who spent the summer in Mississippi as both a volunteer and a journalist, accompanied Hamer as she visited Delta churches to encourage parishioners to register to vote. “Mrs. Hamer rose majestically to her feet,” he wrote. “Her magnificent voice rolled through the chapel as she enlisted the Biblical ranks of martyrs and heroes to summon these folk to the Freedom banner. Her mounting, rolling battery of quotations and allusions from the Old and New Testaments stunned the audience with its thunder.”

While the student volunteers knocked on doors and taught classes, Hamer was busy with the MFDP. The party held its own conventions at the precinct, county, and state levels to select a group to send to Atlantic City in August, where they would challenge the seating of the all-white Mississippi delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Hamer was elected vice chair of the integrated delegation, which consisted of 64 black members and four white members.

The MFDP’s goal was to persuade the convention’s Credentials Committee to seat them as Mississippi representatives. President Lyndon Johnson, who needed Southern Democrats’ support in his bid for re-election, was determined to block them. Hamer was among those who testified before the Credentials Committee. During her powerful testimony, Johnson called a last-minute press conference, causing the networks to break with their convention coverage and broadcast from the White House instead.

Testifying at the 1964 DNC. Credit: Library of Congress

But Johnson's ploy to keep Hamer off television did not work. Her testimony was compelling enough for many evening news programs to broadcast it, incidentally granting it a much larger audience. Hamer held the committee’s attention as she spoke from memory about her eviction from the Marlow plantation and her brutal beating in the Winona jail. After less than 10 minutes she concluded: “If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”

Nonetheless, under pressure from Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, members of the Credentials Committee dropped their support for the MFDP. As a conciliatory gesture, Democratic officials offered two at-large seats to MFDP representatives, though Humphrey made it clear Johnson would not stand for one of the seats going to Hamer, “The President has said he will not let that illiterate woman speak on the floor of the Democratic convention.” The MFDP rejected the offer, and Hamer’s voice was one of the loudest in opposition. “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats,” she said.

Singing at a rally. Credit: Take Stock/Matt Herron

After the MFDP delegation returned to Mississippi, Hamer was in high demand as a speaker. Her appearances were good for fundraising, always a concern for civil rights organizations, and she spent the remainder of the 1960s balancing national activism with her work within Mississippi. Voting rights remained a priority, even after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and Hamer took the lead in lawsuits that led to the first elections in which large numbers of black residents of Sunflower County were registered and eligible to vote in 1967. She also organized plaintiffs for a school desegregation lawsuit, instituted livestock and agricultural co-ops to improve economic prospects in the Delta, and was involved in the introduction of Head Start programs for low-income children of all races. Hamer had mixed success, particularly as her worsening health -- a combination of a lifetime in poverty, her 1963 beating, and a 1976 cancer diagnosis -- limited her capacity for public speaking and made fundraising difficult.

Hamer died in 1977 from complications associated with heart disease and cancer. Hundreds of local residents turned out for her funeral, as did most of the leaders of the civil rights movement. Stokely Carmichael of SNCC, Ella Baker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dorothy Height of the National Council of Negro Women, and Delta Democrat-Times editor Hodding Carter all spoke in celebration of Hamer's contributions to her family, her community, and the fight for Civil Rights that was her driving passion.

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Fannie Lou Hamer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fannie Lou Hamer
Hamer in 1971
Born	Fannie Lou Townsend October 6, 1917 Montgomery County, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	March 14, 1977 (aged 59) Mound Bayou, Mississippi, U.S.
Burial place	Ruleville, Mississippi, U.S.
Organization(s)	National Women's Political Caucus Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee National Council of Negro Women
Known for	Civil rights leader
Title	Vice chairwoman of Freedom Democratic Party; Co-founder of National Women's Political Caucus
Political party	Freedom Democratic Party
Movement	Civil rights movement Women's rights
Spouse	Perry "Pap" Hamer
Children	4
Awards	Inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame

Fannie Lou Hamer (/ˈheɪmər/; née Townsend; October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977) was an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement. She was the vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer also organized Mississippi's Freedom Summer along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office.^[1]

Hamer began civil rights activism in 1962, continuing until her health declined nine years later. She was known for her use of spiritual hymns and quotes and her resilience in leading the civil rights movement for black women in Mississippi. She was extorted, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by racists, including members of the police, while trying to register for and exercise her right to vote. She later helped and encouraged thousands of African-Americans in Mississippi to become registered voters and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work in programs like the Freedom Farm Cooperative. She unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1964, losing to John C. Stennis, and the Mississippi State Senate in 1971. In 1970, she led legal action against the government of Sunflower County, Mississippi for continued illegal segregation.

Hamer died on March 14, 1977, aged 59, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Her memorial service was widely attended and her eulogy was delivered by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young.^[2] She was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

Early life, family, and education

Hamer was born as Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She was the last of the 20 children of Ella and James Lee Townsend.^[3]

In 1919, the Townsends moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on W. D. Marlow's plantation.^[4] From age six, Hamer picked cotton with her family. During the winters of 1924 through 1930, she attended the one-room school provided for the sharecroppers' children, open between picking seasons. Hamer loved reading and excelled in spelling bees and reciting poetry, but at age 12 she had to leave school to help support her aging parents.^[5][6][7] By age 13, she would pick 200–300 pounds (90 to 140 kg) of cotton daily while living with polio.^[8][9][10]

Hamer continued to develop her reading and interpretation skills in Bible study at her church;^[5] in later years Lawrence Guyot admired her ability to connect "the biblical exhortations for liberation and [the struggle for civil rights] any time that she wanted to and move in and out to any frames of reference".^[11] In 1944, after the plantation owner discovered her literacy, she was selected as its time and record keeper.^[12] The following year she married Perry "Pap" Hamer, a tractor driver on the Marlow plantation, and they remained there for the next 18 years.^[4]

We had a little money so we took care of her and raised her. She was sickly too when I got her; suffered from malnutrition. Then she got run over by a car and her leg was broken. So she's only in fourth grade now.

 — Fannie Lou Hamer^[7]

Hamer and her husband wanted very much to start a family but in 1961, a white doctor subjected Hamer to a hysterectomy without her consent while she was undergoing surgery to remove a uterine tumor.^[13] Forced sterilization was a common method of population control in Mississippi that targeted poor, African-American women. Members of the Black community called the procedure a "Mississippi appendectomy".^[13] The Hamers later raised two girls they adopted, eventually adopting two more.^[3][14] One, Dorothy Jean, died at age 22 of internal hemorrhaging after she was denied admission to the local hospital because of her mother's activism.^[7][14]

Hamer became interested in the civil rights movement in the 1950s.^[15] She heard leaders of the local movement speak at annual Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) conferences, held in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.^[15] The attendees of the yearly conferences discussed black voting rights and other civil rights issues black communities in the area faced.^[12]

Civil rights activism

Registering to vote

See also: Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow laws, and Literacy test

On August 31, 1962, Hamer and 17 others attempted to vote but failed a literacy test, which meant they were denied this right. On December 4, just after returning to her hometown, she went to the courthouse in Indianola to take the test again, but failed and was turned away.^[12] Hamer told the registrar, "You'll see me every 30 days till I pass".^[7] On January 10, 1963, she took the test a third time.^[12] She was successful and was informed that she was now a registered voter in Mississippi. But when she attempted to vote that fall, she discovered her registration gave her no actual power to vote as her county also required voters to have two poll tax receipts.^[7] This requirement had emerged in some (mostly former Confederate) states after the right to vote was first given to all races by the 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[16][17] These laws, along with the literacy tests and local government acts of coercion, were used against black people and Native Americans.^[18][19] Hamer later paid for and acquired the requisite poll tax receipts.^[7]

They talked about how it was our right, that we could register and vote. I had never heard, until 1962, that black people could register and vote.^[1]

— Fannie Lou Hamer

Hamer began to become more involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after these incidents.^[7] She attended many Southern Christian Leadership Conferences (SCLC), where she sometimes taught classes, and various SNCC (pronounced "Snick") workshops. She traveled to gather signatures for petitions to attempt to be granted federal resources for impoverished black families across the South. In early 1963, she became a SNCC field secretary for voter registration and welfare programs. Many of these first attempts to register more black voters in Mississippi were met with the same problems Hamer had found in trying to register herself.^[20]

We been waitin' all our lives, and still gettin' killed, still gettin' hung, still gettin' beat to death. Now we're tired waitin'!^[7]

— Fannie Lou Hamer

White racist attacks

They kicked me off the plantation, they set me free. It’s the best thing that could happen. Now I can work for my people.

—Fannie Lou Hamer^[21]

After her attempt to vote, Hamer was fired by her boss, but her husband was required to stay on the land until the end of the harvest.^[22][3][23] Hamer moved between homes over the next several days for protection. On September 10, while staying with friend Mary Tucker, Hamer was shot at 15 times in a drive-by shooting by racists.^[12][24][25] No one was injured in the event.^[9] The next day Hamer and her family evacuated to nearby Tallahatchie County^[7] for three months, fearing retaliation by the Ku Klux Klan for her attempt to vote.^[26][15][27]

I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.

— Fannie Lou Hamer^[28]

Police brutality

On June 9, 1963, Hamer was returning from a voter registration workshop by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Charleston, South Carolina.^[3] Traveling by bus with co-activists, they stopped for a break in Winona, Mississippi.^[7] Some of the activists went inside a local cafe, but were refused service by the waitress. Shortly after, a Mississippi State highway patrolman took out his billy club and intimidated the activists into leaving. One of the group decided to take down the officer's license plate number; while doing so the patrolman and a police chief entered the cafe and arrested the party. Hamer left the bus and inquired if they could continue their journey back to Greenwood, Mississippi.^[3] At that point the officers arrested her as well.^[7][22] Once in county jail, Hamer's colleagues were beaten by the police in the booking room (including 15-year-old June Johnson, for not addressing officers as "sir").^[29][30] Hamer was then taken to a cell where two inmates were ordered, by the state trooper, to beat her using a baton.^[7] The police ensured she was held down during the almost fatal beating, and when she started to scream, beat her further. Hamer was also groped repeatedly by officers during the assault. When she attempted to resist, she stated an officer, "walked over, took my dress, pulled it up over my shoulders, leaving my body exposed to five men".^[31] Another in her group was beaten until she was unable to talk; a third, a teenager, was beaten, stomped on, and stripped.^[32] An activist from SNCC came the next day to see if he could help but was beaten until his eyes were swollen shut when he did not address an officer in the expected deferential manner.^[9][33]

Hamer was released on June 12, 1963. She needed more than a month to recuperate from the beatings and never fully recovered.^[20] Though the incident left profound physical and psychological effects, including a blood clot over her left eye and permanent damage on one of her kidneys,^[34] Hamer returned to Mississippi to organize voter registration drives, including the 1963 Freedom Ballot, a mock election, and the Freedom Summer initiative the following year. She was known to the volunteers of Freedom Summer as a motherly figure who believed that the civil rights effort should be multi-racial in nature. In addition to her "Northern" guests, Hamer played host to Tuskegee University student activists Sammy Younge Jr. and Wendell Paris.^[35] Younge and Paris grew to become profound activists and organizers under Hamer's tutelage.^[35] Younge was murdered in 1966 at a gas station in Macon County, Alabama, for using a "whites-only" restroom.^[36]

Freedom Democratic Party and Congressional run

Hamer at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 1964

External audio
Audio of Hamer's testimony

In 1964, Hamer helped co-found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), in an effort to prevent the regional all-white Democratic party's attempts to stifle African-American voices, and to ensure there was a party for all people that did not stand for any form of exploitation and discrimination (especially towards minorities).^[37][7] Following the founding of the MFDP, Hamer and other activists traveled to the 1964 Democratic National Convention to stand as the official delegation from the state of Mississippi.^[37] Hamer's televised testimony was interrupted because of a scheduled speech that President Lyndon B. Johnson gave to 30 governors in the White House East Room, but most major news networks broadcast her testimony later that evening to the nation, giving Hamer and the MFDP much exposure.^[38]

All of this is on account we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?

— Fannie Lou Hamer^[3]

Senator Hubert Humphrey tried to propose a compromise on Johnson's behalf that would give the Freedom Democratic Party two seats.^[39] He said this would lead to a reformed convention in 1968.^[3] The MFDP rejected the compromise, with Hamer saying, "We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we'd gotten here. We didn't come all this way for no two seats when all of us is tired."^[40][39] Afterward, all the white members from the Mississippi delegation walked out.^[3]

In 1968, the MFDP was finally seated after the Democratic Party adopted a clause that demanded equality of representation from their states' delegations.^[41] In 1972, Hamer was elected as a national party delegate.^[39]

Rhetorical practices

Hamer traveled around the country speaking at various colleges, universities, and institutions.^[42] She was not rich, as confirmed by her clothing and vernacular.^[42] Moreover, Hamer was a short and stocky poor black woman with a deep southern accent, which gave rise to ridicule in the minds of many in her audiences.^[43] Although she often gave speeches, she was often patronized by both black and white people because she was not formally educated. For instance, activists like Roy Wilkins said Hamer was "ignorant", and President Lyndon B. Johnson looked down on her. When Hamer was being considered to speak as a delegate at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Hubert Humphrey said, "The President will not allow that illiterate woman to speak from the floor of the convention."^[42] In 1964, Hamer received an honorary degree from Tougaloo College, much to the dismay of a group of black intellectuals who thought she was undeserving of such an honor because she was "unlettered".^[42] On the other hand, Hamer had supporters like Ella Baker, Bob Moses, Charles McLaurin, and Malcolm X who believed in her story and in her ability to speak.^[42] These supporters and others like them believed that despite Hamer's illiteracy, "People who have struggled to support themselves and large families, people who have survived in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi, have learned some things we need to know."^[42] Hamer was known to evoke strong emotions in listeners to her speeches indicative of her "telling it like it is" oratorical style.^[42]

Hamer's style of speaking and connecting to audiences can be traced back to her upbringing and the black Baptist Church to which her family belonged, which many see as the source of her ability to compel audiences with words.^[42] Woven into her speeches was a deep level of confidence, biblical knowledge, and even comedy in a way that many did not think possible for someone without a formal education or access to "institutionalized power".^[42] Hamer witnessed her mother be brave enough to walk around with a concealed pistol to protect her children from white land owners who were known to beat sharecroppers' children.^[42] Moreover, Hamer's mother instilled a sense of pride in being black when Hamer did not see it as a benefit as a child.^[42] In addition, Hamer's father was a Baptist preacher who often entertained the family with jokes at the end of the day.^[42] Although Hamer only made it to the sixth grade because she had to help the family work the fields, she excelled greatly at reading, spelling, and poetry, and even won spelling bees. Her family encouraged her to recite her poetry to the family and their guests.^[42]

Hamer became a plantation timekeeper, a position that made her the point person who had to communicate with both the white land owners and the black sharecroppers, which helped her practice communicating to different kinds of people. After she got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, Hamer's oratorical skills quickly became apparent; leading activists were amazed at how she did not write her speeches but delivered them from memory.^[42] The Reverend Edwin King said of Hamer, "She was an extraordinarily good cook of down-home foods...she liked to mix, to make whatever she was feeding people at midnight after they would come home from jail or somewhere else, to fix the perfect spices or recipe for her guest,...after she became the orator, she began picking and choosing the spicy parts she’d put in her speeches. She was always doing the best she had with whatever she had. The food, or words, or voice or song—choosing among it what was needed to persuade or to comfort or to please."^[42] When traveling to different speaking engagements, Hamer not only made speeches, but also sang, often with the Freedom Singers.^[42] Charles Neblitt, one of its members, said of Hamer, "We'd let her sing all the songs we did that she knew. She put her whole self into her singing, adding a power to the group...When somebody puts their inner self into a song, it moves people. Her singing showed the kind of dedication that she had—the struggle and the pain, the frustration and the hope... Her life would be in that song."^[43]

Hamer's "southern black vernacular", indicative of the denial of blacks', particularly black Southerners', access to standard American English captures the feelings and experiences of black Southerners despite of that lack of access.^[42] According to Davis Houck and Maegan Parker Brooks in The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer, "the designation 'black' acknowledges aspects of Hamer’s racialized experience that influenced her speech. When describing Hamer’s discourse, moreover, we find the term 'vernacular' more precise than either 'dialect' or 'language' because the etymology of 'vernacular'—taken from the Latin vernaculus and verna—evokes a sense of being both 'native to a region' and 'subservient to something else.' In this respect, 'vernacular' echoes the particularity indicated by the regional distinction, as it simultaneously represents the relationship of power and domination that Hamer challenged through her words."

One of Hamer's most famous speeches was at Williams Institutional Church in Harlem on December 20, 1964, along with Malcolm X. In the speech, "Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired",^[44] Hamer chronicled the violence and injustices she experienced while trying to register to vote. While highlighting the various acts of brutality she experienced in the South, she was careful to also tie in the fact that blacks in the North and all over the country were suffering the same oppression. The audience was one-third white and gave Hamer a warm reception.^[43]

Freedom Farm Cooperative and later activism

Main article: Freedom Farm Cooperative

In 1964, Hamer unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate.^[3] She continued to work on other projects, including grassroots-level Head Start programs and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign. With the help of Julius Lester and Mary Varela, she published her autobiography in 1967.^[45] She said she was "tired of all this beating" and "there's so much hate. Only God has kept the Negro sane".^[7]

Hamer sought equality across all aspects of society.^[46] In Hamer's view, African-Americans were not technically free if they were not afforded the same opportunities as whites, including those in the agricultural industry. Sharecropping was the most common form of post-slavery activity and income in the South.^[47] The New Deal era expanded so that many blacks were physically and economically displaced due to the various projects appearing around the country. Hamer did not wish to have blacks be dependent on any group for any longer; so, she wanted to give them a voice through an agricultural movement.^[48]

Hamer was a staunch opponent of abortion, calling it "legalized murder" in a 1969 speech at the White House and describing her position in terms of her Christian faith.^[49] In Until I Am Free, historian Keisha N. Blain writes, "Hamer viewed birth control and abortion as social justice issues. She feared that both were simply white supremacist tools to regulate the lives of impoverished Black people and even prevent the growth of the Black population."^[50]

James Eastland, a white senator, was among the groups of people who sought to keep African-Americans disenfranchised and segregated from society.^[51] His influence on the overarching agricultural industry often suppressed minority groups to keep whites as the only power force in America.^[48] Hamer objected to this, and consequently pioneered the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC) in 1969, an attempt to redistribute economic power across groups and to solidify an economic standing amongst African-Americans.^[46] In the same vein as the Freedom Farm Collective, Hamer partnered with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) to establish an interracial and interregional support program called The Pig Project to provide protein for people who previously could not afford meat.^[52]

Hamer made it her mission to make land more accessible to African-Americans.^[46] To do this, she started a small "pig bank" with a starting donation from the NCNW of five boars and fifty gilts.^[53] Through the pig bank, a family could care for a pregnant female pig until it bore its offspring; subsequently, they would raise the piglets and use them for food and financial gain.^[53][46] Within five years, thousands of pigs were available for breeding.^[53] Hamer used the success of the bank to begin fundraising for the main farming corporation.^[46][53] She was able to convince the then-editor of the Harvard Crimson, James Fallows, to write an article that advocated for donations to the FFC.^[48] Eventually, the FFC had raised around $8,000 which allowed Hamer to purchase 40 acres of land previously owned by a black farmer who could no longer afford to occupy the land.^[54] This land became the Freedom Farm.^[54] The farm had three main objectives.^[46] These were to establish an agricultural organization that could supplement the nutritional needs of America's most disenfranchised people; to provide acceptable housing development; and to create an entrepreneurial business incubator that would provide resources for new companies and re-training for those with limited education but manual labor experience.^[55]

Over time, the FFC offered various other services such as financial counseling, a scholarship fund and a housing agency.^[53] The FFC aided in securing 35 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) subsidized houses for struggling black families.^[54] Through her success, Hamer managed to acquire a new home, which served as inspiration for others to begin building themselves up.^[46] The FFC ultimately disbanded in 1975 due to lack of funding.^[55]

In 1971, Hamer co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus. She emphasized the power women could hold by acting as a voting majority in the country regardless of race or ethnicity, saying "A white mother is no different from a black mother. The only thing is they haven't had as many problems. But we cry the same tears."^[3]

Later life and death

While having surgery in 1961 to remove a tumor, 44-year-old Hamer was also given a hysterectomy without consent by a white doctor; this was a frequent occurrence under Mississippi's compulsory sterilization plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state.^[56][57][58] Hamer is credited with coining the phrase "Mississippi appendectomy" as a euphemism for the involuntary or uninformed sterilization of black women, common in the South in the 1960s.^[59] She came out of an extended period in hospital for nervous exhaustion in January 1972, and was hospitalized again in January 1974 for a nervous breakdown. By June 1974, Hamer was said to be in extremely poor health.^[3] Two years later she was diagnosed with and had surgery for breast cancer.^[3]

Hamer died of complications from hypertension and breast cancer on March 14, 1977, aged 59, at Taborian Hospital, Mound Bayou, Mississippi.^[60] She was buried in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. Her tombstone is engraved with one of her famous quotes, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."^[61]

Her primary memorial service, held at a church, was completely full. An overflow service was held at Ruleville Central High School,^[62] with over 1,500 people in attendance. Andrew Young, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, spoke at the RCHS service, saying "None of us would be where we are now had she not been there then".^[63]

Honors and awards

A sign honoring Fannie Lou Hamer for her work in Ruleville, Mississippi

Hamer received many awards both in her lifetime and posthumously. She received a Doctor of Law from Shaw University,^[64] and honorary degrees from Columbia College Chicago in 1970^[65] and Howard University in 1972.^[66] She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.^[3]

Hamer also received the Paul Robeson Award from Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority,^[67] the Mary Church Terrell Award from Delta Sigma Theta sorority, the National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award.^[68] She is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta. A remembrance for her life was given in the US House of Representatives on the 100th anniversary of her birth, October 6, 2017, by Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.^[15]

Tributes

Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden in Ruleville, Mississippi

In 1970, Ruleville Central High School held a "Fannie Lou Hamer Day". Six years later, the City of Ruleville itself celebrated a "Fannie Lou Hamer Day".^[69] In 1977, Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson wrote "95 South (All of the Places We've Been)", in Hamer's honor. Ta-Nehisi Coates described a 1994 live solo version of the song as "a haunting and somber ode".^[70]

In 1994, the Ruleville post office was named the Fannie Lou Hamer Post Office by an act of Congress.^[71] Additionally, The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy was founded in 1997 as a summer seminar and K–12 workshop program.^[72] In 2014 it was merged with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) Civil Rights Education Complex on the campus of Jackson State University, Jackson, to create the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO: A Human and Civil Rights Interdisciplinary Education Center. The Hamer Institute @ COFO provides a research library and outreach programs.^[72] There is also a Fannie Lou Hamer Public Library in Jackson.^[73]

A 2012 collection of suites by trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith, who grew up in segregated Mississippi, Ten Freedom Summers includes "Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964" as one of its 19 suites.^[74] A picture book about Hamer's life, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, was written by Carole Boston Weatherford; it won a Coretta Scott King Award.^[75] Hamer is also one of 28 civil rights icons depicted on the Buffalo, New York Freedom Wall.^[76] And a quote from Hamer's speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention is carved on one of the eleven granite columns at the Civil Rights Garden in Atlantic City, where the convention was held.^[77]

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School was formed in the Bronx, New York, with a focus on humanities and social justice.^[78]

In 2017 the Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center opened at the University of California at Berkeley.^[79]

In 2018, the Mississippi Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner fundraiser was renamed the Hamer-Winter Dinner in honor of Hamer and former governor William Winter.^[80]

The third annual Women's March, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey on January 19, 2019, was dedicated to Hamer's life and legacy. Several hundred people attended, representing many organizations. Several students from Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School attended despite a state of emergency declared by New Jersey Governor Murphy due to an impending snowstorm.

The gardener and podcaster Colah B. Tawkin cites Hamer as inspiration.^[81]

Works

• Fannie Lou Hamer, Julius Lester, and Mary Varela, Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography, 1967^[45]
• Hamer, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Songs My Mother Taught Me (album), 2015^[82]
• Hamer (2011). The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781604738230. Cf.

See also

• 
  
  

• African Americans in Mississippi
• Black women in American politics
• List of civil rights leaders

Citations

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2. ^ Johnson, Thomas A. (March 21, 1977). "Young Eulogizes Fannie L. Hamer, Mississippi Civil Rights Champion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 26, 2018. Retrieved February 24, 2018.
3. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Mills, Kay (April 2007). "Fannie Lou Hamer: Civil Rights Activist". Mississippi History Now. Mississippi Historical Society. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b Badger 2002, p. 69.
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b Lee 1999, pp. 5–7.
6. ^ An Oral History with Fannie Lou Hamer (Transcript). April 14, 1972. Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, University of Southern Mississippi.
7. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} DeMuth, Jerry (April 2, 2009). "Fannie Lou Hamer: Tired of Being Sick and Tired". The Nation. Archived from the original on January 31, 2018.
8. ^ Mills 1997, p. 225.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Zinn, Howard. ""Mississippi 11: Greenwood" from SNCC the New Abolitionists". p. 9.
10. ^ Marsh 1997, p. 19.
11. ^ Chappell 2004, p. 312.
12. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activistist [sic], Political Activist, and Woman (PDF), Amistad Research Center, November 29, 2017, archived (PDF) from the original on January 31, 2018, retrieved January 30, 2018 – via Gale.com. From the Fannie Lou Hamer Papers, 1966–1978
13. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Fannie Lou Hamer". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
14. ^ Jump up to:^a b Reece, Chuck (March 2020). "Fannie Lou Hamer's America: A Primer". The Bitter Southerner. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
15. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Jackson Lee, Sheila (October 6, 2017). "Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer, Courageous and Tireless Fighter for Voting Rights and Social Justice Who Spike Truth to Power and Touched the Conscience of the Nation". Congressional Record. Archived from the original on January 31, 2018.
16. ^ United States Commission on Civil Rights 1965, p. 4.
17. ^ Franklin, Ben A. (January 24, 1964). "Impact of Poll Tax Has Waned in Last 40 Years". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 14, 2018. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
18. ^ "Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement – Literacy Tests". crmvet.org. Tougaloo College. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
19. ^ United States Commission on Civil Rights 1965, p. 18.
20. ^ Jump up to:^a b "VOD Journal-Volume 6 (2011) – Voices of Democracy". Voices of Democracy. February 11, 2012. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017.
21. ^ Davis, Janel (February 3, 2018). "Fannie Lou Hamer: 'Sick and tired' sharecropper became political force". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
22. ^ Jump up to:^a b Michals, Debra (2017). "Fannie Lou Hamer". National Women's History Museum.
23. ^ Badger, p. 70
24. ^ Gierah, Davis (1950). "caption information for image of Fannie Lou Hamer with others". Tuskegee University Archives. Archived from the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
25. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, pp. 199–200.
26. ^ Carawan, Guy (1965). "The Story of Greenwood, Mississippi" (PDF). folkways-media.si.edu. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 9, 2021. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
27. ^ Marsh 1997, pp. 15–18.
28. ^ Burns 2012, p. 636.
29. ^ Hamer, Fannie Lou (August 22, 1964). "Testimony Before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention". American Public Media. Archived from the original on February 11, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
30. ^ Joiner, Lottie (September 2, 2014). "Remembering Civil Rights Heroine Fannie Lou Hamer: 'I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired'". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
31. ^ L., McGuire, Danielle (2010). At the dark end of the street : black women, rape, and resistance- a new history of the civil rights movement from Rosa Parks to the rise of black power (1st Vintage books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 9780307389244. OCLC 699764927.
32. ^ Marsh 1997, p. 21.
33. ^ Fierce, Tasha (February 26, 2015). "Black Women Are Beaten, Sexually Assaulted and Killed By Police. Why Don't We Talk About It?". AlterNet. Archived from the original on March 5, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
34. ^ Marsh 1997, p. 22.
35. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Fannie Lou Hamer, champion of voting rights: View". USA Today Network. February 27, 2017. Archived from the original on March 15, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
36. ^ Chandler, D. L. (January 3, 2014). "Sammy Younge Killed For Using Whites-Only Bathroom On This Day In 1966". News One. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
37. ^ Jump up to:^a b Michals, Debra (2017). "Fannie Lou Hamer". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
38. ^ Parker Brooks, Maegan (2014). A Voice that Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 102, 272. ISBN 9781628460056.
39. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Lemongello, Steven (August 24, 2014). "Black Mississippians create legacy". Press of Atlantic City. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
40. ^ Dittmer 1993, p. 20.
41. ^ Draper, Alan (August 26, 2014). "Fannie Lou Hamer, and the still-endangered right to vote". The Indianapolis Star. Gannett. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
42. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} Brooks, Maegan Parker; Houck, Davis W., eds. (December 3, 2010). The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer. doi:10.14325/mississippi/9781604738223.001.0001. ISBN 9781604738223.
43. ^ Jump up to:^a b c McMillen, Neil R.; Mills, Kay (June 1994). "This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer". The Journal of American History. 81 (1): 350. doi:10.2307/2081149. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2081149.
44. ^ "I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired – Dec. 20, 1964". Archives of Women's Political Communication. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
45. ^ Jump up to:^a b Hamer, Fanny Lou (1967). To Praise Our Bridges. Archived from the original on February 26, 2018.
46. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g} "Fannie Lou Hamer founds Freedom Farm Cooperative — SNCC Digital Gateway". SNCC Digital Gateway. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
47. ^ Davis 2013, p. 94.
48. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Asch, Chris Myers (2008). The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 198–220. JSTOR 9780807878057.
49. ^ "4 lessons for a post-Roe world from Fannie Lou Hamer: a pro-life, civil rights icon". America Magazine. February 25, 2022. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
50. ^ BLAIN, KEISHA N. (2022). UNTIL I AM FREE : fannie lou hamer's enduring message to america. [S.l.]: BEACON. ISBN 978-0-8070-0725-9. OCLC 1306526989.
51. ^ "James Eastland". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on April 6, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
52. ^ Brooks, Maegan Parker (2014). A Voice that could stir an army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement. United States of America: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-62846-004-9.
53. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} White, Monica M. (2017). ""A pig and a garden": Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative". Food and Foodways. 25: 20–39. doi:10.1080/07409710.2017.1270647. S2CID 157578821.
54. ^ Jump up to:^a b c M., White, Monica. ""A pig and a garden": Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative". Food and Foodways. 25 (1): 1–20. Archived from the original on June 26, 2017.
55. ^ Jump up to:^a b White, Monica M. (January 2, 2017). ""A pig and a garden": Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative". Food and Foodways. 25: 20–39. doi:10.1080/07409710.2017.1270647. S2CID 157578821.
56. ^ Lee, Chana Kai (2000). For Freedom's Sake: the Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. University of Illinois Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN 978-0-252-06936-9.
57. ^ "Fannie Lou Hamer Biography". biography.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
58. ^ Nelson 2003, pp. 68–69.
59. ^ Jones & Eubanks 2014, p. 259.
60. ^ Johnson, Thomas A. (March 15, 1977). "Fannie Lou Hamer Dies. Left Farm To Lead Struggle for Civil Rights". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 30, 2017.
61. ^ Barber, Rebekah; Barber, Sharrelle (October 6, 2016). "'Sick and tired of being sick and tired': making the connection between disenfranchisement and disease". Facing South: A Voice for a Changing South. Archived from the original on November 14, 2017.
62. ^ Mills 1997, p. 226.
63. ^ Nash & Taggart 2007, p. 85.
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65. ^ "Honorary Degrees Issued" Archived October 23, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Library of Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois.
66. ^ Hamer 2011, p. 145.
67. ^ Wilson, Charles Reagan (February 1, 2014). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 3: History. University of North Carolina Press. p. 298. ISBN 978-1-4696-1655-1. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
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69. ^ Donovan 2003, p. 62.
70. ^ Coates, Ta-Nehisi (July 9, 2011). "Opinion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 25, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
71. ^ "H.R. 4452 (103rd): To designate the Post Office building at 115 West Chester in Ruleville, Mississippi, as the 'Fannie Lou Hamer United States Post Office'". GovTrack.us. Archived from the original on January 30, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
72. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Comprehensive Overview of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO". Jackson State University. Archived from the original on January 29, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
73. ^ "Fannie Lou Hamer Library". Jackson Hinds Library System. Archived from the original on April 2, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022. Welcome to the Fannie Lou Hamer Library. Our library branch, which is named for Mississippi Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, is located inside the Golden Key Senior Center.
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General references

• Asch, Chris Myers (2008). The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer. New York and Chapel Hill: The New Press and University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-59558-332-1.
• Badger, Anthony (2002). The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights South. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-690-8.
• Beito, David T.; Beito, Linda Royster (2009). Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-03420-6.
• Burns, James MacGregor (April 10, 2012). "Chapter 8: Striding Toward Freedom". The Crosswinds of Freedom: 1932–1988. Open Road Media. ISBN 978-1-4532-4520-0. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
• Chappell, David L. (2004). A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2819-9. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
• Davis, David A (2013). Monteith, Sharon (ed.). Southern Modernists and Modernity. The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South. University of Cambridge Press. ISBN 978-1-107-03678-9.
• Dittmer, John (1993). Dittmer, John; Wright, George C.; Dulaney, W. Marvin (eds.). Mississippi Movement. Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-540-5.
• Donovan, Sandy (2003). Fannie Lou Hamer. Heinemann-Raintree Library. ISBN 978-1-107-61085-9.
• Hamer, Fannie Lou; Lester, Julius; Varela, Mary (1967). Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography.
• Hamer, Fannie Lou (2011). The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell it Like it is. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-823-0.
• Jones, Alethia; Eubanks, Virginia, eds. (2014). Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-5115-2.
• Lee, Chana Kai (1999). For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06936-9.
• Marsh, Charles (1997). God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02134-8.
• Mills, Kay (1997). Barnwell, Marion (ed.). A Place Called Mississippi: Collected Narratives. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-61703-339-1.
• Nash, Jere; Taggart, Andy (2007). Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976–2008. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-357-0.
• Nelson, Jennifer (2003). Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-5827-4.
• United States Commission on Civil Rights (1965). Voting in Mississippi (PDF). Washington, D.C.: United States government.

Further reading

External video
Booknotes interview with Kay Mills on This Little Light of Mine, February 28, 1993, C-SPAN

• Colman, Penny (1993). Fannie Lou Hamer and the Fight for the Vote. The Millbrook Press
• Kling, Susan (1979). Fannie Lou Hamer: A Biography. Chicago: Women for Racial and Economic Equality.
• Larson, Kate Clifford (2021). Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-009684-7. OCLC 1237398180.
• Lee, Chana Kai, For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. 2000. ISBN 9780252069369
• Mills, Kay (1993). This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Dutton.
• Moye, J. Todd. Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945–1986, University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
• O'Dell, Jack (1965). "Life in Mississippi: An Interview with Fannie Lou Hamer".
• Payne, Charles M. (1995). I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20706-8.
• Ware, Susan, and Stacy Lorraine Braukman. Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary - Completing the Twentieth Century. Belknap, 2005.
• Weatherford, Carole Boston, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement. Dreamscape Media, 2016. ISBN 9781520016740

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Fannie Lou Hamer.

• "This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer" (documentary film).
• “Fannie Lou Hamer Interview,” 1965-09-24, Pacifica Radio Archives, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
• SNCC Digital Gateway: Fannie Lou Hamer, Documentary website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University, telling the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and grassroots organizing from the inside-out.
• National Women's Hall of Fame and National Women’s History Museum entries
• "Fannie Lou Hamer", Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks, October 6, 2005.
• Fannie Lou Hamer Collection (MUM00215) owned by the University of Mississippi, Archives and Special Collections.
• FBI file on Fannie Lou Hamer.
• Jerry DeMuth, "Fannie Lou Hamer: Tired of Being Sick and Tired", The Nation, April 2, 2009.
• Transcripts of eight important speeches made in the 1960s, including her testimony before the DNC credentialing committee. Published by The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute@COFO, Jackson State University as an online educational supplement to A Voice That Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement (2014), by Hamer scholar Maegan Parker Brooks.