Final Draft for NHD

Lauren Wesley
Final Draft

Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer was born on a plantation in the Mississippi hill country in 1918, the last of twenty children. Fannie Lou Hamer's parents, who were sharecroppers, moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, when she was two years old. Due to the economic circumstances in which the family lived, Hamer received only six years of formal education. Education at that time was considered secondary to work; nevertheless, Fannie lou Hamer states, and I quote "When I was a child, I loved to read." In fact, she learned to read real well when she was going to school." Fannie lou Hamer continued farming until the 1960s. Mrs. Hamer became a participant of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC in 1962. As a result of Fannie Lou Hamer becoming a civil rights activist, she became a leading figure in the organization of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As a member of the party, she attended the 1964 National Democratic Convention to challenge the seating of Mississippi's Regular Democratic Party.

Mrs. Hamer traveled widely on behalf of the civil rights movement. She made addresses in many major cities and colleges in the United States. On August 31, she traveled on a rented bus with other attendees of Rev. Bevel's sermon to Indianola, Mississippi to register. On June 9, 1963, Hamer was on her way to Charleston, South Carolina, with other activists for a SNCC conference. When the group stopped in Winona, Mississippi the group was arrested on a false charge and jailed by white policemen. Once in jail, Hamer and her colleagues were beaten savagely by the police, almost to the point of death. Two highway policemen ordered Negro’s to beat her. The pain was unbearable.

Fannie lou hamer was involved in various projects. Hamer worked to help the poor of Ruleville, while in fact, she was still poor herself. In the following nine years she raised money for low-income housing, started a day-care center, which still bears her name, and made plans for a garment factory to provide jobs, which she ran unsuccessfully for the Mississippi state senate in 1971. Her most cherished project was the Freedom Farm Cooperative. Hamer's favorite quote was, "if you give a hungry man food, he will eat it." If you give him land, he will grow his own food." During speaking engagements around the country , she would promote the project and ask for donations.

In the summer of 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer did voter registration and having mass meetings trying to get more people involved and bringing more people out--adults, because at that time, there was no such thing as the eighteen-year-old vote. Hamer was also involved in the freedom school, they'd teach because there were lot of people that couldn't [read]. Most of the time Hamer wouldn't attend the school sessions because she was on the road most of the time.

Fannie Lou Hamer brought a Head Start program to her local community, to form a local Pig Bank cooperative in (1968) with the guidance of the National Council of Negro Women, and later found the Freedom Farm Cooperative (1969). She helped found the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, speaking for inclusion of racial issues in the feminist agenda. In 1964, presidential elections were being held. In an effort to focus greater national attention on voting discrimination, civil rights groups created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Its purpose was to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation on the grounds that it didn't fairly represent all citizens of Mississippi, since most black people had not been allowed to vote.

After all the fighting, and motivation Fannie Lou Hamer and others were able to reach a compromise. That gave voting and speaking rights to two delegates from the MFDP and seated the others as honored guests. The Democrats agreed that in the future, no delegation would be seated from a state where anyone was illegally denied the vote. A year later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

Years later Fannie Lou Hamer suffered from breast cancer, diabetes, and heart problems. Fannie Lou Hamer died in Mississippi in 1977. Before she past she was able to publish a book entitled, "To Praise Our Bridges": An Autobiograpy in 1967. Fannie Lou Hamer is a inspiration to today’s society because she and other civil right activist gave African Americans rights that were never possible to fulfill. She was able to prove that with effort, hard work, and a supporting team behind you, anything is possible. Just a few days ago, America declared Barack Obama (African American) to be president of the United States of America. Without people like Fannie Lou Hamer, his presidency wouldn’t exist. I’m admired by Mrs. Hamer because, she makes me think that one day, I could be the next African American women in office.