Fannie Lou Hamer Testifying Before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic National Convention
March is designated as Women’s History Month including International Women’s Day that was commemorated this week. Women were central to the modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s. Yet their contributions were often overshadowed due to the patriarchal structures of the society in general and the leadership of the movement in particular. One woman who embodied the faith, courage, and commitment of the movement was Fannie Lou Hamer. She grew up in poverty in Mississippi where her parents were sharecroppers, and she raised her own family in that same oppressive system. At the age of 45 in 1962, she attended a voter registration meeting as a local Black church. She made the crucial decision to register to vote, and that decision changed the trajectory of the rest of her life. The plantation owner where Fannie Lou lived evicted her family when she refused to back down from trying to register. She became deeply involved with the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and faced ongoing persecution from white authorities who wanted to maintain their segregated “way of life.”
In June 1963, Fannie Lou was arrested in Winona, MS along with several others returning from a voter registration training. She was brutally beaten in the Winona jail resulting in life long injuries. The next summer, she shared her testimony before the credentials committee at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ. She was part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that was trying to replace the delegates of the traditional and segregated state Democratic Party. Although their efforts were unsuccessful at that convention, Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony impacted the nation and became an enduring legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
A recent documentary called “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” shares her courageous and inspiring story mostly in her own words. Click here for a link to the documentary. The two short videos posted below focus on her 1964 testimony at the Democratic National Convention. Fannie Lou Hamer died in 1977 at the age of 59 and was posthumously inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. Her faith, courage, and commitment to racial justice make her a powerful witness whose story needs to be lifted up not only during Women’s History Month but throughout the year.