GM – FBF – “You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap” – Fannie Lou Hamer
Remember – , “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
Today in our History – March 14, 1977 –
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was
a civil rights activist whose passionate depiction of her own suffering in a
racist society helped focus attention on the plight of African-Americans
throughout the South. In 1964, working with the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer helped organize the 1964 Freedom Summer
African-American voter registration drive in her native Mississippi. At the
Democratic National Convention later that year, she was part of the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated group of activists who openly
challenged the legality of Mississippi’s all-white, segregated delegation.
Born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi.
The daughter of sharecroppers, Hamer began working the fields at an early age.
Her family struggled financially, and often went hungry.
Married to Perry “Pap” Hamer in 1944, Fannie Lou continued to work hard just to
get by. In the summer of 1962, however, she made a life-changing decision to
attend a protest meeting. She met civil rights activists there who were there
to encourage African Americans to register to vote. Hamer became active in
helping with the voter registration efforts.
Hamer dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights, working for the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This organization was comprised
mostly of African American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience
to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South. These acts often were
met with violent responses by angry whites. During the course of her activist
career, Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot at. But none of these
things ever deterred her from her work.In 1964, Hamer helped found the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was established in opposition to
her state’s all-white delegation to that year’s Democratic convention.
She brought the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the
entire nation during a televised session at the convention. The next year,
Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi, but she was unsuccessful in her
bid.Along with her political activism, Hamer worked to help the poor and
families in need in her Mississippi community.
She also set up organizations to increase business opportunities for minorities
and to provide childcare and other family services. Hamer died of cancer on
March 14, 1977, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.