Bad Ass Women of History: Fannie Lou Hamer

When we look at any historical movements, there are often people left in the background. Many times these figures are women and/or minorities. Films like Hidden Figures bring some of these figures to the foreground. However, when we look at the Civil Rights Movement at least from a white perspective, we often see the conversation dominated by the men of the movement such Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, John Lewis, etc. Fannie Lou Hamer is one of these women left in the background. 

I first heard the name of Fannie Lou Hamer when watching the HBO film, All the Way, based on the play about LBJ starring Bryan Cranston as President Johnson. She had a small scene in which her press conference at the 1964 Democratic National Convention was purposely interrupted by a conference for LBJ. Hamer was the leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The Freedom Democrats, as they were also known, were seeking to be seated as part of the Mississippi delegation as part of the nomination process for the Democratic Presidential nominee. After much negotiation, which Hamer was eventually excluded from because of an unwillingness to compromise (being seated but allowed no votes), the delegates were indeed seated but without votes. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention the MFDP would be seated with full voting rights as part of the nomination process.

This was not Hamer’s first foray into the Civil Rights Movement. In 1962 after hearing a sermon delivered by Rev James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she organized for transportation for other attendees to go to Indianola, Mississippi to register to vote. For just daring to register to vote, Fannie was fired from her job. SNCC organizer, Bob Moses, would then recruit Hamer to work with the SNCC. Her work would include tutoring African-Americans in reading so that they might be able to pass the literacy test that was required in many states in order to be eligible to vote. This was all despite not having dropped out of school when she was 12 in order to work at a cotton plantation. 

The hardships that she faced as a civil rights activist in the South did not deter her. In 1963, Hamer along with several others was arrested for sitting in a “whites only” bus station and beaten in the booking room. She was then taken to a cell where the officers ordered other inmates to beat her with a blackjack. Her injuries included a blood clot in her eye, kidney damage, and permanent injury to her leg. However, like a true bad ass, after recovering for a month, she went straight back to doing the work she had been doing. In 1964, she unsuccessfully ran for the Mississippi House of Representatives due to the refusal of the state to allow her name on the ballot. 

Her activism extended beyond securing the rights of African Americans guaranteed by the 15^th Amendment. She worked tirelessly in efforts to end poverty in Mississippi. In 1965, she helped organize a strike of African American cotton pickers. Later in 1969, she would establish a farm cooperative that offered free pigs to African American farmers so that they might breed, raise, and slaughter the animals. Fannie would work to establish the Head Start program in the Delta to provide access to preschool education to poor children, particularly poor African American families.

Though she was beaten and shot at, Fannie Lou Hamer never wavered in her convictions. She fought tirelessly for civil rights until her death in 1977 at the age of 59. Her tombstone in Ruleville, MS is engraved with one of her more famous quotes: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”