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'''Fannie Lou Hamer''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|eɪ|m|ər}}; {{nee}} '''Townsend'''; October 6, 1917&nbsp;– March 14, 1977) was an American [[voting rights|voting]] and [[women's rights]] activist, [[Community organizing|community organizer]], and a leader in the [[civil rights movement]]. She was the vice-chair of the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party|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.<ref name="brown">{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=DeNeen |title=Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men—and presidents—who tried to silence her |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/10/06/civil-rights-crusader-fannie-lou-hamer-defied-men-and-presidents-who-tried-to-silence-her/ |access-date=6 March 2020 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=6 October 2017 |language=en}}</ref>
'''Fannie Lou Hamer''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|eɪ|m|ər}}; {{nee}} '''Townsend'''; October 6, 1917&nbsp;– March 14, 1977) was an American [[voting rights|voting]] and [[women's rights]] activist, [[Community organizing|community organizer]], and a leader in the [[civil rights movement]]. She was the vice-chair of the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party|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.<ref name="brown">{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=DeNeen |title=Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men—and presidents—who tried to silence her |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/10/06/civil-rights-crusader-fannie-lou-hamer-defied-men-and-presidents-who-tried-to-silence-her/ |access-date=6 March 2020 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=6 October 2017 |language=en}}</ref>


Adrian began civil rights activism in 1962, continuing until his health declined nine years later. he was known for his use of spiritual [[hymnal|hymn]]s and quotes and her resilience in leading the civil rights movement for black women in Mississippi. he was [[extort]]ed, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by [[white supremacists|racists]], including members of the police, while trying to register for and exercise his right to vote. he later helped and encouraged thousands of African-Americans in Mississippi to become [[Voter registration in the United States|registered voters]] and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work in programs like the [[Freedom Farm Cooperative]]. he unsuccessfully ran for the [[U.S. Senate]] in [[1964 United States Senate elections|1964]], losing to [[John C. Stennis]], and the [[Mississippi State Senate]] in 1971. In 1970, he led legal action against the government of [[Sunflower County, Mississippi]] for continued illegal [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]].
Hamer began civil rights activism in 1962, continuing until her health declined nine years later. She was known for her use of spiritual [[hymnal|hymn]]s and quotes and her resilience in leading the civil rights movement for black women in Mississippi. She was [[extort]]ed, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by [[white supremacists|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 [[Voter registration in the United States|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 United States Senate elections|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 [[Racial segregation in the United States|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]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/21/archives/young-eulogizes-fannie-l-hamer-mississippi-civil-rights-champion.html|title=Young Eulogizes Fannie L. Hamer, Mississippi Civil Rights Champion|last=Johnson|first=Thomas A.|date=March 21, 1977|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 24, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226073702/https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/21/archives/young-eulogizes-fannie-l-hamer-mississippi-civil-rights-champion.html|archive-date=February 26, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> She was posthumously inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in 1993.
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]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/21/archives/young-eulogizes-fannie-l-hamer-mississippi-civil-rights-champion.html|title=Young Eulogizes Fannie L. Hamer, Mississippi Civil Rights Champion|last=Johnson|first=Thomas A.|date=March 21, 1977|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 24, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226073702/https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/21/archives/young-eulogizes-fannie-l-hamer-mississippi-civil-rights-champion.html|archive-date=February 26, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> She was posthumously inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in 1993.
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===Police brutality===
===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]].<ref name="mdah" /> Traveling by bus with co-activists, they stopped for a break in [[Winona, Mississippi]].<ref name="Nation" /> 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]].<ref name="mdah" /> At that point the officers arrested her as well.<ref name="Nation" /><ref name="Michals">{{cite news|last=Michals|first=Debra|title=Fannie Lou Hamer|publisher=National Women's History Museum|date=2017|url=https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer}}</ref> 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").<ref name="testimony">{{cite web|last1=Hamer|first1=Fannie Lou|title=Testimony Before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention|url=http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html|publisher=American Public Media|access-date=March 3, 2015|date=August 22, 1964|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211180421/http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html|archive-date=February 11, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="beast">{{cite news | url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/02/remembering-civil-rights-heroine-fannie-lou-hamer-i-m-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired.html | title=Remembering Civil Rights Heroine Fannie Lou Hamer: 'I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired' | work=The Daily Beast | date=September 2, 2014 | access-date=March 3, 2015 | author=Joiner, Lottie | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402111603/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/02/remembering-civil-rights-heroine-fannie-lou-hamer-i-m-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired.html | archive-date=April 2, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Hamer was then taken to a cell where two inmates were ordered, by the state trooper, to beat her using a [[Baton (law enforcement)#Blackjack|baton]].<ref name="Nation" /> 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".<ref>{{Cite book|title=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|last=L.|first=McGuire, Danielle|date=2010|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=9780307389244|edition= 1st Vintage books|location=New York|oclc=699764927}}</ref> Another in her group was beaten until she was unable to talk; a third, a teenager, was beaten, stomped on, and stripped.{{sfn|Marsh|1997|page=21}} 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.<ref name="Zinn" /><ref name="alter">{{cite news | url=http://www.alternet.org/activism/black-women-are-beaten-sexually-assaulted-and-killed-police-why-dont-we-talk-about-it | title=Black Women Are Beaten, Sexually Assaulted and Killed By Police. Why Don't We Talk About It? | work=AlterNet | date=February 26, 2015 | access-date=March 4, 2015 | author=Fierce, Tasha | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150305213921/http://www.alternet.org/activism/black-women-are-beaten-sexually-assaulted-and-killed-police-why-dont-we-talk-about-it | archive-date=March 5, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>
On June 9, 1963, Hamer was returning from a voter registration workshop by the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) in [[Charleston, South Carolina]].<ref name="mdah" /> Traveling by bus with co-activists, they stopped for a break in [[Winona, Mississippi]].<ref name="Nation" /> 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]].<ref name="mdah" /> At that point the officers arrested her as well.<ref name="Nation" /><ref name="Michals">{{cite news|last=Michals|first=Debra|title=Fannie Lou Hamer|publisher=National Women's History Museum|date=2017|url=https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer}}</ref> 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").<ref name="testimony">{{cite web|last1=Hamer|first1=Fannie Lou|title=Testimony Before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention|url=http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html|publisher=American Public Media|access-date=March 3, 2015|date=August 22, 1964|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211180421/http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/flhamer.html|archive-date=February 11, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="beast">{{cite news | url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/02/remembering-civil-rights-heroine-fannie-lou-hamer-i-m-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired.html | title=Remembering Civil Rights Heroine Fannie Lou Hamer: 'I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired' | work=The Daily Beast | date=September 2, 2014 | access-date=March 3, 2015 | author=Joiner, Lottie | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402111603/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/02/remembering-civil-rights-heroine-fannie-lou-hamer-i-m-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired.html | archive-date=April 2, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Hamer was then taken to a cell where two inmates were ordered, by the state trooper, to beat her using a [[Baton (law enforcement)#Blackjack|baton]].<ref name="Nation" /> The police ensured she was held down d

Hamer was released on June 12, 1963. She needed more than a month to recuperate from the beatings and never fully recovered.<ref name="vod" /> 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]],{{sfn|Marsh|1997|page=22}} 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.<ref name="lohud">{{Cite news |url=https://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/02/27/fannie-lou-hamer-champion-voting-rights-view/98292790/ |title=Fannie Lou Hamer, champion of voting rights: View |date=February 27, 2017 |work=USA Today Network |access-date=February 13, 2018 |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170315174954/http://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/02/27/fannie-lou-hamer-champion-voting-rights-view/98292790/ |archive-date=March 15, 2017 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Younge and Paris grew to become profound activists and organizers under Hamer's tutelage.<ref name="lohud" /> Younge was murdered in 1966 at a gas station in [[Macon County, Alabama]], for using a "whites-only" restroom.<ref name="newsone">{{cite news | url=http://newsone.com/2824521/samuel-sammy-younge-jr/ | title=Sammy Younge Killed For Using Whites-Only Bathroom On This Day In 1966 | work=News One | date=January 3, 2014 | access-date=March 7, 2015 | author=Chandler, D. L. | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317235409/http://newsone.com/2824521/samuel-sammy-younge-jr/ | archive-date=March 17, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>

===Freedom Democratic Party and Congressional run===
[[File:Fannie_Lou_Hamer_1964-08-22.jpg|thumb|Hamer at the [[Democratic National Convention]], Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 1964]]
{{external media|float=right|width=230px|audio1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRCUUzpfV7k 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 (United States)|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).<ref name="history">{{Cite web |url=https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer |title=Fannie Lou Hamer |last=Michals |first=Debra |date=2017 |website=National Women's History Museum |language=en |access-date=February 13, 2018 }}</ref><ref name=Nation/> 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.<ref name="history" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Voice that Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement|last=Parker Brooks|first=Maegan|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2014|isbn=9781628460056|location=Jackson|pages=102, 272}}</ref>

{{blockquote|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<ref name="mdah"/>}}

[[U.S. Senator|Senator]] [[Hubert Humphrey]] tried to propose a compromise on Johnson's behalf that would give the Freedom Democratic Party two seats.<ref name="atlantic" /> He said this would lead to a reformed convention in 1968.<ref name="mdah"/> 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."{{sfn|Dittmer|1993|p=20}}<ref name="atlantic">{{cite news | url=http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/atlantic-city_pleasantville_brigantine/black-mississippians-create-legacy/article_9811ec34-2bdd-11e4-92f4-0019bb2963f4.html | title=Black Mississippians create legacy | work=Press of Atlantic City | date=August 24, 2014 | access-date=March 4, 2015 | author=Lemongello, Steven | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304043502/http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/atlantic-city_pleasantville_brigantine/black-mississippians-create-legacy/article_9811ec34-2bdd-11e4-92f4-0019bb2963f4.html | archive-date=March 4, 2016 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Afterward, all the white members from the Mississippi delegation walked out.<ref name="mdah"/>

In 1968, the MFDP was finally seated after the Democratic Party adopted a clause that demanded equality of representation from their states' delegations.<ref name="indy">{{cite news | url=http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2014/08/26/fannie-lou-hamer-still-endangered-right-vote/14625007/ | title=Fannie Lou Hamer, and the still-endangered right to vote | work=The Indianapolis Star | date=August 26, 2014 | agency=Gannett | access-date=March 4, 2015 | author=Draper, Alan}}</ref> In 1972, Hamer was elected as a national party delegate.<ref name="atlantic"/>

'''<big>Rhetorical practices</big>'''

Hamer traveled around the country speaking at various colleges, universities, and institutions.<ref name="Brooks-2010">{{Cite book|date=2010-12-03|editor-last=Brooks|editor-first=Maegan Parker|editor2-last=Houck|editor2-first=Davis W.|title=The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.14325/mississippi/9781604738223.001.0001|doi=10.14325/mississippi/9781604738223.001.0001|isbn=9781604738223}}</ref> She was not rich, as confirmed by her clothing and vernacular.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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.<ref name="McMillen-1994">{{Cite journal|last=McMillen|first=Neil R.|last2=Mills|first2=Kay|date=June 1994|title=This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2081149|journal=The Journal of American History|volume=81|issue=1|pages=350|doi=10.2307/2081149|jstor=2081149|issn=0021-8723}}</ref> Although she often gave speeches, she was often patronized by both black and white people because she was not formally educated. For instance, activists such as [[Roy Wilkins]] said Hamer was "ignorant", and [[Lyndon B. Johnson|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."<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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".<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> On the other hand, Hamer had supporters including [[Ella Baker]], [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]], [[Charles McLaurin]], and [[Malcolm X]] who believed in her story and in her ability to speak.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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."<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> Hamer was known to evoke strong emotions in listeners to her speeches indicative of her "telling it like it is" oratorical style.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/>

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.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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".<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> Moreover, Hamer's mother instilled a sense of pride in being black when Hamer did not see it as a benefit as a child.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> In addition, Hamer's father was a Baptist preacher who often entertained the family with jokes at the end of the day.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/>

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.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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."<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> When traveling to different speaking engagements, Hamer not only made speeches, but also sang, often with the [[The Freedom Singers|Freedom Singers.]]<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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."<ref name="McMillen-1994"/>

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.<ref name="Brooks-2010"/> 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",<ref>{{Cite web|title=I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired – Dec. 20, 1964|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired-dec-20-1964/|access-date=2020-11-02|website=Archives of Women's Political Communication|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name="McMillen-1994"/>

==Freedom Farm Cooperative and later activism==
{{main|Freedom Farm Cooperative}}
In 1964, Hamer unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]].<ref name="mdah"/> She continued to work on other projects, including [[grassroots]]-level [[Head Start program]]s and [[Martin Luther King Jr.|Martin Luther King, Jr.]]'s [[Poor People's Campaign]]. With the help of Julius Lester and Mary Varela, she published her [[autobiography]] in 1967.<ref name=SNCC>{{cite book|url=https://snccdigital.org/wp-content/themes/sncc/flipbooks/mev_hamer_updated/index.html?swipeboxvideo=1#page/1|title=To Praise Our Bridges|first=Fanny Lou|last=Hamer|year=1967|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226073702/https://snccdigital.org/wp-content/themes/sncc/flipbooks/mev_hamer_updated/index.html?swipeboxvideo=1#page/1|archive-date=February 26, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> She said she was "tired of all this beating" and "there's so much hate. Only God has kept the Negro sane".<ref name=Nation/>

Hamer sought [[Social equality|equality]] across all aspects of society.<ref name="farm"/> 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.{{sfn|Davis|2013|p=94}} 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.<ref name="University of North Carolina Press">{{cite book|title=The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer|first=Chris Myers|last=Asch|year=2008|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|pages=198–220|jstor = 9780807878057}}</ref>

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 [[Christianity|Christian]] faith.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-02-25 |title=4 lessons for a post-Roe world from Fannie Lou Hamer: a pro-life, civil rights icon |url=https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/02/25/abortion-roe-wade-fannie-lou-hamer-242451 |access-date=2023-02-28 |website=America Magazine |language=en}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=BLAIN |first=KEISHA N. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1306526989 |title=UNTIL I AM FREE : fannie lou hamer's enduring message to america. |date=2022 |publisher=BEACON |isbn=978-0-8070-0725-9 |location=[S.l.] |oclc=1306526989}}</ref>

[[James Eastland]], a white senator, was among the groups of people who sought to keep African Americans disenfranchised and segregated from society.<ref name="eastland">{{Cite web |url=http://spartacus-educational.com/USAeastland.htm |title=James Eastland |website=Spartacus Educational |access-date=February 13, 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406124059/http://spartacus-educational.com/USAeastland.htm |archive-date=April 6, 2017 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> His influence on the overarching agricultural industry often suppressed minority groups to keep whites as the only power force in America.<ref name="University of North Carolina Press"/> Hamer objected to this, and consequently pioneered the [[Freedom Farm Cooperative]] (FFC) in 1969, an attempt to [[redistribution of income and wealth|redistribute]] [[economic power]] across groups and to solidify an economic standing among African Americans.<ref name="farm">{{Cite journal |title=Fannie Lou Hamer founds Freedom Farm Cooperative&nbsp;— SNCC Digital Gateway |url=https://snccdigital.org/events/fannie-lou-hamer-founds-freedom-farm-cooperative/ |journal=SNCC Digital Gateway |language=en-US |access-date=February 13, 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180213195415/https://snccdigital.org/events/fannie-lou-hamer-founds-freedom-farm-cooperative/ |archive-date=February 13, 2018 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Voice that could stir an army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement|last=Brooks|first=Maegan Parker|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2014|isbn=978-1-62846-004-9|location=United States of America}}</ref>

Hamer made it her mission to make land more accessible to African Americans.<ref name="farm"/> To do this, she started a small "pig bank" with a starting donation from the NCNW of five boars and fifty gilts.<ref name="white">{{Cite journal |last=White |first=Monica M. |title='A pig and a garden': Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative |journal=Food and Foodways |year=2017 |volume=25 |pages=20–39 |doi=10.1080/07409710.2017.1270647|s2cid=157578821 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="white" /><ref name="farm" /> Within five years, thousands of pigs were available for breeding.<ref name="white" /> Hamer used the success of the bank to begin fundraising for the main farming corporation.<ref name="farm" /><ref name="white" /> 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.<ref name="University of North Carolina Press"/> Eventually, the FFC had raised around $8,000 which allowed Hamer to purchase 40 [[acre]]s of land previously owned by a black farmer who could no longer afford to occupy the land.<ref name="pig">{{Cite journal |last=M. |first=White, Monica |title='A pig and a garden': Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative |url=https://www.academia.edu/31683953 |journal=Food and Foodways |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=1–20 |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170626164418/http://www.academia.edu/31683953/_A_pig_and_a_garden_Fannie_Lou_Hamer_and_the_Freedom_Farms_Cooperative |archive-date=June 26, 2017 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> This land became the Freedom Farm.<ref name="pig" /> The farm had three main objectives.<ref name="farm"/> 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.<ref name="dx.doi.org">{{Cite journal|last=White|first=Monica M.|title='A pig and a garden': Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Cooperative|journal=Food and Foodways|volume=25|pages=20–39|doi=10.1080/07409710.2017.1270647|date=January 2, 2017|s2cid=157578821}}</ref>

Over time, the FFC offered various other services such as [[financial counseling]], a [[scholarship fund]] and a housing agency.<ref name="white"/> The FFC aided in securing 35 [[Federal Housing Administration]] (FHA) subsidized houses for struggling black families.<ref name="pig" /> Through her success, Hamer managed to acquire a new home, which served as inspiration for others to begin building themselves up.<ref name="farm" /> The FFC ultimately disbanded in 1975 due to lack of funding.<ref name="dx.doi.org"/>

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."<ref name="mdah"/>

==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#United States|compulsory sterilization]] plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state.<ref name="lee">{{cite book |last=Lee |first=Chana Kai |title=[[For Freedom's Sake: the Life of Fannie Lou Hamer]] |date=2000 |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |isbn=978-0-252-06936-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/forfreedomssakel0000leec/page/80 80–81] }}</ref><ref name="Bio">{{cite web | url=http://www.biography.com/people/fannie-lou-hamer-205625 | title=Fannie Lou Hamer Biography | publisher=biography.com | access-date=March 3, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227054219/http://www.biography.com/people/fannie-lou-hamer-205625 | archive-date=February 27, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>{{sfn|Nelson|2003|pp=68–69}} 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.{{sfn|Jones|Eubanks|2014|p=259}} 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.<ref name="mdah"/> Two years later she was diagnosed with and had surgery for breast cancer.<ref name="mdah"/>

Hamer died of complications from [[hypertension]] and [[breast cancer]] on March 14, 1977, aged 59, at [[Taborian Hospital]], [[Mound Bayou, Mississippi]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Johnson, Thomas A. |title=Fannie Lou Hamer Dies. Left Farm To Lead Struggle for Civil Rights |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/15/archives/fannie-lou-hamer-dies-left-farm-to-lead-struggle-for-civil-rights.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 15, 1977 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230115425/http://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/15/archives/fannie-lou-hamer-dies-left-farm-to-lead-struggle-for-civil-rights.html |archive-date=December 30, 2017 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> 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."<ref name=Facing>{{cite web|url=https://www.facingsouth.org/2016/10/sick-and-tired-being-sick-and-tired-making-connection-between-disenfranchisement-and-disease|website=Facing South: A Voice for a Changing South|title='Sick and tired of being sick and tired': making the connection between disenfranchisement and disease|last=Barber|first=Rebekah|last2=Barber|first2=Sharrelle|date=October 6, 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114031829/https://www.facingsouth.org/2016/10/sick-and-tired-being-sick-and-tired-making-connection-between-disenfranchisement-and-disease|archive-date=November 14, 2017|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Her primary [[memorial service]], held at a church, was completely full. An overflow service was held at [[Ruleville Central High School]],{{sfn|Mills|1997|p=226}} 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".{{sfn|Nash|Taggart|2007|p=85}}

==Honors and awards==
[[File:FannieLouHamerSignRuleville.jpg|thumb|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]],<ref name=Women>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hamer-fannie-lou-1917-1977|encyclopedia=Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia|title=Hamer, Fannie Lou (1917–1977)|date=2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180201020246/http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hamer-fannie-lou-1917-1977|archive-date=February 1, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> and honorary degrees from [[Columbia College Chicago]] in 1970<ref name="COLUMBIACOLLEGECHICAGO">[http://www.lib.colum.edu/archives/honorarydegrees.php "Honorary Degrees Issued"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101023030115/http://www.lib.colum.edu/archives/honorarydegrees.php |date=October 23, 2010 }}, Library of Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois.</ref> and [[Howard University]] in 1972.{{sfn|Hamer|2011|p=145}} She was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]] in 1993.<ref name="mdah"/>

Hamer also received the Paul Robeson Award from [[Alpha Kappa Alpha]] sorority,<ref name="Cha2014">{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Charles Reagan|title=The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 3: History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ySqaAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA298|access-date=January 7, 2018|date=February 1, 2014|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-4696-1655-1|page=298}}</ref> the Mary Church Terrell Award from [[Delta Sigma Theta]] sorority, the National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award.{{sfn|Badger|2002|pp=79–80}} 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]].<ref name=SJL/>

==Tributes==
[[File:Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden.jpg|thumb|right|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".{{sfn|Donovan|2003|p=62}} In 1977, [[Gil Scott-Heron]] and [[Brian Jackson (musician)|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".<ref name="img">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10coates.html |title=Opinion |last=Coates |first=Ta-Nehisi |date=July 9, 2011 |work=The New York Times |access-date=February 13, 2018 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025214242/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10coates.html |archive-date=October 25, 2017 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

In 1994, the Ruleville post office was named the Fannie Lou Hamer Post Office by an [[act of Congress]].<ref>{{cite web|title=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'.|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr4452/summary|publisher=[[GovTrack]].us|access-date=January 29, 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180130013831/https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/hr4452/summary|archive-date=January 30, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Additionally, The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy was founded in 1997 as a summer seminar and [[K–12]] workshop program.<ref name="cofo"/> In 2014 it was merged with the [[Council of Federated Organizations]] (COFO) Civil Rights Education Complex on the campus of [[Jackson State University]], [[Jackson, Mississippi|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.<ref name="cofo">{{cite web|title=Comprehensive Overview of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO|url=http://www.jsums.edu/hamerinstitute/comprehensive-overview-of-the-fannie-lou-hamer-institute-cofo/|publisher=[[Jackson State University]]|access-date=January 29, 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180129195546/http://www.jsums.edu/hamerinstitute/comprehensive-overview-of-the-fannie-lou-hamer-institute-cofo/|archive-date=January 29, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref> There is also a Fannie Lou Hamer Public Library in [[Jackson, Mississippi|Jackson]].<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://jhlibrary.org/hamer/
|title = Fannie Lou Hamer Library
|publisher = Jackson Hinds Library System
|access-date = April 2, 2022
|quote = 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.
|url-status = live
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210512024326/https://jhlibrary.org/hamer/
|archive-date = May 12, 2021
|df = mdy-all
}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/8whf/|title=Wadada Leo Smith, Ten Freedom Summers review|last=Spicer|first=Daniel|publisher=BBC|date=2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170705074649/http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/8whf/|archive-date=July 5, 2017|df=mdy-all}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ala.org/rt/emiert/coretta-scott-king-book-awards-all-recipients-1970-present|title=Coretta Scott King Book Awards&nbsp;— All Recipients, 1970–Present|website=American Library Association website|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010085746/http://www.ala.org/rt/emiert/coretta-scott-king-book-awards-all-recipients-1970-present|archive-date=October 10, 2017|df=mdy-all|date=2012-04-05}}</ref> Hamer is also one of 28 civil rights icons depicted on the [[Buffalo, New York]] Freedom Wall.<ref name="buffalo">{{cite web|url=https://www.albrightknox.org/community/ak-public-art/freedom-wall|title=The Freedom Wall|publisher=[[Albright-Knox Art Gallery]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007070236/https://www.albrightknox.org/community/ak-public-art/freedom-wall|archive-date=October 7, 2017|df=mdy-all}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Civil Rights Garden 'a little-known secret' in A.C.|url=http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/civil-rights-garden-a-little-known-secret-in-a-c/article_06832fe0-d914-11e5-b6aa-c7b83dd3bd34.html|author=Hetrick, Christian|date=February 21, 2016|publisher=Press of Atlantic City|access-date=January 29, 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180129195529/http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/civil-rights-garden-a-little-known-secret-in-a-c/article_06832fe0-d914-11e5-b6aa-c7b83dd3bd34.html|archive-date=January 29, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School was formed in the Bronx, New York, with a focus on humanities and social justice.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.schools.nyc.gov/schools/x682|title=Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School|website=www.schools.nyc.gov|access-date=2019-05-14}}</ref>
<!--Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School has a middle school was later opened to further Hamer's legacy-->

In 2017, the Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center opened at the University of California at Berkeley.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://uhs.berkeley.edu/blackhealthmatters/campus-resources|title=Campus Resources|website=uhs.berkeley.edu|access-date=2019-05-14}}</ref>

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 (politician)|William Winter]].<ref>Associated Press (January 27, 2018), [https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/27/alabama-senator-jones-address-mississippi-democrats/1072221001/ Doug Jones to address Mississippi Democrats], ''[[The Clarion-Ledger]]''.</ref>

The [[2019 Women's March|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.

[[Cheryl L. West]] wrote the play ''Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer'', which premiered at the [[Actors Theatre of Louisville]] in 2022 as part of a co-production shared among [[Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company]], the [[August Wilson African American Cultural Center]], City Theatre Company, and DEMASKUS Theater Collective.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.actorstheatre.org/shows/2022-2023/fannie-the-music-and-life-of-fannie-lou-hamer/ |title=Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer &#124; Actors Theatre|date=2022 }}</ref>

The gardener and podcaster [[Colah B. Tawkin]] cites Hamer as inspiration.<ref>{{cite web |title=5 minutes with Colah B Tawkin |url=https://www.thestate.com/entertainment/local-events/article241173466.html |website=The State}}</ref>

==Works==
* Fannie Lou Hamer, Julius Lester, and Mary Varela, ''Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography'', 1967<ref name=SNCC/>
* Hamer, [[Smithsonian Folkways Recordings]], ''Songs My Mother Taught Me'' (album), 2015<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.folkways.si.edu/sneak-preview-songs-my-mother-taught-me-by-fannie-lou-hamer|title=Sneak Preview: Songs My Mother Taught Me by Fannie Lou Hamer|website=Smithsonian Folkways website|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150611042738/http://www.folkways.si.edu/sneak-preview-songs-my-mother-taught-me-by-fannie-lou-hamer|archive-date=June 11, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
* Hamer (2011). ''The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is''. University Press of Mississippi. {{ISBN|9781604738230}}. Cf.

==See also==
{{Portal|Civil rights movement|Mississippi|Biography|United States}}
* [[African Americans in Mississippi]]
* [[Black women in American politics]]
* [[List of civil rights leaders]]
* [[Melerson Guy Dunham]] (1904–1985) – friend, educator, civil and women's right activist, and historian
{{clear}}

== Citations ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== General references ==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|last=Asch|first=Chris Myers|year=2008|title=The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer|location=New York and Chapel Hill|publisher=[[The New Press]] and [[University of North Carolina Press]]|isbn=978-1-59558-332-1}}
* {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2AGXTQFENYQC&q=inauthor%3A%22Anthony%20J.%20Badger%20Ted%20Ownby%22&pg=PA69 | title=The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights South | publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]] | last=Badger|first=Anthony | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-60473-690-8}}
* {{cite book|first=David T.|last=Beito|first2=Linda Royster|last2=Beito|title=Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power|publisher=Urbana: University of Illinois Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-252-03420-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Burns|first=James MacGregor|author-link=James MacGregor Burns|title=The Crosswinds of Freedom: 1932–1988|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGOJcfBSdMsC|access-date=January 7, 2018|date=April 10, 2012|publisher=Open Road Media|isbn=978-1-4532-4520-0|chapter=Chapter 8: Striding Toward Freedom }}
* {{cite book|last=Chappell|first=David L.|title=A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tsH0E4RCFNoC&pg=PA312|access-date=January 28, 2018|year=2004|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|isbn=978-0-8078-2819-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Davis|first=David A.|year=2013|chapter=Southern Modernists and Modernity|editor1-last=Monteith|editor1-first=Sharon|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South|publisher=University of Cambridge Press|isbn=978-1-107-03678-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Dittmer|first=John|author-link=John Dittmer|year=1993|chapter=Mississippi Movement|editor1=Dittmer, John|editor2=Wright, George C.|editor3=Dulaney, W. Marvin|title=Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|isbn=978-0-89096-540-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Donovan|first=Sandy|year=2003|title=Fannie Lou Hamer|publisher=Heinemann-Raintree Library|isbn=978-1-107-61085-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Hamer|first=Fannie Lou|last2=Lester|first2=Julius|last3=Varela|first3=Mary|year=1967|title=Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography}}
* {{cite book|last=Hamer|first=Fannie Lou|year=2011|title=The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell it Like it is|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-823-0}}
* {{cite book | editor-first1=Alethia | editor-last1=Jones | editor-first2=Virginia | editor-last2=Eubanks | title=Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith | year=2014 | publisher=SUNY Press | isbn=978-1-4384-5115-2 }}
* {{cite book|last=Lee|first=Chana Kai|year=1999|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gx2ZcDNUWAAC|title=For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer|location=Athens|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-252-06936-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Marsh|first=Charles|year=1997|title=God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights|location=Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-02134-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/godslongsummer00char}}
* {{cite book |last=Mills|first=Kay|editor-last=Barnwell|editor-first=Marion|title=[[A Place Called Mississippi: Collected Narratives]] |publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]] |year=1997|isbn=978-1-61703-339-1}}
* {{cite book|last1=Nash|first1=Jere|first2=Andy|last2=Taggart|year=2007|title=Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976–2008|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-357-0}}
* {{cite book|last=Nelson|first=Jennifer|year=2003|title=Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement|location=New York|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-5827-4}}
* {{cite book|last=United States Commission on Civil Rights|year=1965|title=Voting in Mississippi|location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=United States government|url=https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12v94.pdf}}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?38281-1/little-light-mine ''Booknotes'' interview with Kay Mills on ''This Little Light of Mine'', February 28, 1993], [[C-SPAN]]}}
* [[Penny Colman|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.
* {{Cite book|last=Larson|first=Kate Clifford|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1237398180|title=Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer|date=2021|isbn=978-0-19-009684-7|location=Oxford|oclc=1237398180}}
*Lee, Chana Kai, ''[[For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer]]''. 2000. {{ISBN| 9780252069369}}
* [[Kay Mills (writer)|Mills, Kay]] (1993). ''This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer''. New York: Dutton.
* Moye, J. Todd. ''[[Let the People Decide|Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945–1986]]'', University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
* [[Jack O'Dell|O'Dell, Jack]] (1965). [http://www.crmvet.org/nars/flh1.htm "Life in Mississippi: An Interview with Fannie Lou Hamer".]
* [[Charles M. Payne|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}}.
* [[Susan Ware|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}}

* {{cite web | url = https://www.aroundrobin.com/this-little-light-of-mine/ | title = This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer | type = documentary film}}
* [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_28-bg2h70895r "Fannie Lou Hamer Interview,"] 1965-09-24, [[Pacifica Foundation|Pacifica Radio Archives]], [[American Archive of Public Broadcasting]] (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
* [https://snccdigital.org/people/fannie-lou-hamer/ 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.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120324043707/http://www.greatwomen.org/women-of-the-hall/search-the-hall-results/details/2/71-Hamer National Women's Hall of Fame] and [https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer National Women's History Museum entries]
* [http://rsparlourtricks.blogspot.com/2005/10/fannie-lou-hamer.html "Fannie Lou Hamer"], Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks, October 6, 2005.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20091120064721/http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/files/archives/collections/guides/latesthtml/MUM00215.html Fannie Lou Hamer Collection (MUM00215)] owned by the University of Mississippi, Archives and Special Collections.
* [http://vault.fbi.gov/fannie-lou-hammer FBI file on Fannie Lou Hamer].
* Jerry DeMuth, [http://www.thenation.com/article/fannie-lou-hamer-tired-being-sick-and-tired "Fannie Lou Hamer: Tired of Being Sick and Tired"], ''The Nation'', April 2, 2009.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180307171801/http://www.jsums.edu/hamerinstitute/resources/flhspeeches/ 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 ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cvoaBwAAQBAJ 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.

{{National Women's Hall of Fame}}
{{Civil rights movement|state=expanded}}
{{African American topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamer, Fannie Lou}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:1977 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American people]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American women]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:African-American activists]]
[[Category:African-American history of Mississippi]]
[[Category:African-American people in Mississippi politics]]
[[Category:African-American women in politics]]
[[Category:American activists with disabilities]]
[[Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists]]
[[Category:American democracy activists]]
[[Category:Deaths from breast cancer in Mississippi]]
[[Category:Delta Sigma Theta members]]
[[Category:Mississippi Democrats]]
[[Category:People from Montgomery County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:People from Ruleville, Mississippi]]
[[Category:Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]]
[[Category:Victims of police brutality in the United States]]
[[Category:American women civil rights activists]]

Revision as of 17:07, 17 May 2024

Fannie Lou Hamer
Hamer in 1971
Born
Fannie Lou Townsend

(1917-10-06)October 6, 1917
Montgomery County, Mississippi, U.S.
DiedMarch 14, 1977(1977-03-14) (aged 59)
Mound Bayou, Mississippi, U.S.
Burial placeRuleville, Mississippi, U.S.
Organization(s)National Women's Political Caucus
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
National Council of Negro Women
Known forCivil rights leader
TitleVice chairwoman of Freedom Democratic Party; Co-founder of National Women's Political Caucus
Political partyFreedom Democratic Party
MovementCivil rights movement
Women's rights
SpousePerry "Pap" Hamer
Children4
AwardsInductee 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 Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend.[3]

In 1919, the Townsends moved to Ruleville, 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] She became a good friend of RCNL founder and head T. R. M. Howard. [16]

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.[17][18] These laws, along with the literacy tests and local government acts of coercion, were used against black people and Native Americans.[19][20] Hamer later paid for and acquired the requisite poll tax receipts.[7]

As an example of how black citizens were disenfranchised in Mississippi, Hamer said that she "had never heard, until 1962, that black people could register and vote."[1]

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.[21]

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[22]

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.[23][3][24] Hamer moved between homes over the next several days for protection. On September 10, 1962, while staying with friend Mary Tucker, Hamer was shot at 15 times in a drive-by shooting by racists.[12][25][26] 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.[27][15][28]

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[29]

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][23] 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").[30][31] 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 d

  1. ^ a b Brown, DeNeen (October 6, 2017). "Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men—and presidents—who tried to silence her". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  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. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b Badger 2002, p. 69.
  5. ^ 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ^ a b Zinn, Howard. ""Mississippi 11: Greenwood" from SNCC the New Abolitionists". p. 9.
  10. ^ Marsh 1997, p. 19.
  11. ^ Chappell 2004, p. 312.
  12. ^ 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. ^ a b "Fannie Lou Hamer". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  14. ^ a b Reece, Chuck (March 2020). "Fannie Lou Hamer's America: A Primer". The Bitter Southerner. Retrieved January 2, 2023.[permanent dead link]
  15. ^ a b c 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. ^ Beito, David T.; Beito, Linda Royster (2018). T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer (First ed.). Oakland: Institute. pp. 88=90, 222. ISBN 978-1-59813-312-7.
  17. ^ United States Commission on Civil Rights 1965, p. 4.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ "Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement – Literacy Tests". crmvet.org. Tougaloo College. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
  20. ^ United States Commission on Civil Rights 1965, p. 18.
  21. ^ "VOD Journal-Volume 6 (2011) – Voices of Democracy". Voices of Democracy. February 11, 2012. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017.
  22. ^ Davis, Janel (February 3, 2018). "Fannie Lou Hamer: 'Sick and tired' sharecropper became political force". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  23. ^ a b Michals, Debra (2017). "Fannie Lou Hamer". National Women's History Museum.
  24. ^ Badger, p. 70
  25. ^ 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.
  26. ^ Beito & Beito 2009, pp. 199–200.
  27. ^ 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.
  28. ^ Marsh 1997, pp. 15–18.
  29. ^ Burns 2012, p. 636.
  30. ^ 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.
  31. ^ 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.
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