Mississippians honored the memory of a late civil rights leader and native of the state this month on the occasion of her birthday.
Fannie Lou Hamer, born on a Mississippi Delta plantation with her sharecropping family, the youngest of 20 children, inspired civil rights activists with her singing.
When Hamer became involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and after registering to vote, she was kicked off her plantation home.
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A fearless civil rights leader, her singing became a source of strength among civil rights workers. In 1964, she burst onto the national scene when she challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She spoke about Black Americans being harassed, beaten, shot at and arrested for trying to vote. On television, she asked, “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?”
Hamer continued to remain active in the civil rights movement until her death in 1977. Her hometown of Ruleville built a statue to honor her.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A Mississippi Today story.