FANNIE LOU HAMER

FANNIE LOU HAMER, (1917 -1977) From the life of a sharecropper to a civil rights leader and voting rights activist who played a major role in the Freedom Movement and the Freedom Democratic Party.

Fannie Lou Hamer continued to work for civil rights in Mississippi, and she was an outspoken member of Mississippi’s delegation to the next Democratic National Convention in 1968.

Narration:

Civil rights leader and voting rights activist. Her name – Fannie Lou Hamer.

Born in Mississippi in 1917, Fannie Lou Townsend was a sharecropper, the youngest of 19.

She survived the hard life in the fields, married a sharecropper, and by 1962 Mrs. Hamer and 17 others went to the Indianola courthouse to register to vote. They were stopped by police and jailed.

She immediately began working for voting rights with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

By 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer represented the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the presidential convention. Her testimony convinced the delegates to agree that no state should be seated if any of its constituents do not have the right to vote. Her actions helped move President Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act the following year.

Fannie Lou Hamer – A Great American

Credits: Editor: Stacy T. Holmes, ACE, Narrator: Steve Schy, Music: PartnersinRhyme.com, Digital Collection: Library of Congress, Copyright: CBN Communications