Weekly Reflection: Letting Her Light Shine – Fannie Lou Hamer

Mar 29, 2023

As we come to the end of Women’s History Month and our focus on women leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, we lift up the witness of Fannie Lou Hamer. Unlike the previous posts this month that featured women associated with colleges or universities, Fannie Lou Hamer grew up as a sharecropper in Mississippi. This unjust and oppressive way of life is described by Mrs. Hamer in the first video posted below. Despite her lack of formal education due to the demands of the sharecropping system, Fannie Lou Hamer became determined to exercise her right to vote after attending a voter registration meeting in 1962 sponsored by SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in a local church in 1962. Her effort to register led to her family’s eviction from the plantation where they lived for years. Like the vast majority of Black people who tried to register to vote throughout the South, she was rejected due to failing ludicrous registration “tests” given only to Black people.

She joined SNCC’s campaign to protest these unfair practices and advocate for voter registration efforts. In June 1963, she was arrested and jailed in Winona, MS along with several other women who were returning after attending a voter education event in South Carolina. While in jail, she was beaten so severely that it caused life long injuries. A year later at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, she gave a powerful testimony about her voter registration efforts and the horrific Winona jail beating to the Rules Committee. That committee was considering whether or not to replace the segregated Mississippi delegation with the integrated delegation from the newly formed Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Although the Rules Committee ultimately decided against the MFDP, this laid the foundation for a commitment to have an integrated MS delegation in all subsequent Democratic National Conventions. The second video posted below provides the context for her testimony and the third video is the audio of her testimony. This is considered a pivotal event in the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s courage and commitment to justice were rooted in her deep Christian faith. She spoke regularly about the integral relationship between faith and justice. She also shared her faith through music as a song leader at civil rights events. Her renditions of “This Little Light of Mine” and “Let My People Go” became classics of the movement. She is a powerful example of leadership that does not depend on formal credentials but is based on faith, commitment, courage, and love.

Just as Black history is American history and should not be limited to February, so women’s history is American history and should not be limited to March. There were other important women leaders in the Civil Rights Movement that were not featured in this month’s reflections but whose names and contributions need to be remembered and honored; Ella Baker, Amelia Boynton, and Bernice Johnson Reagon to name just a few. I hope that this month’s Weekly Reflections sparked your interest to learn more about women whose lives and witness helped our nation take steps toward greater freedom and justice for all.