Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer
Personal Information
Born: 1917
Died: 1977
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: Black
Education
dropped out of school after the 6th grade to help support her family
""We been waitin' all our lives, and still gettin' killed, still gettin' hung, still gettin' beat to death. Now we're tired waitin'!" (Wikipedia); "All of this is on account we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. 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?" (Wikipedia); "there's so much hate. Only God has kept the Negro sane" (Wikipedia); "A white mother is no different from a black mother. The only thing is they haven't had as many problems. But we cry the same tears." (Wikipedia); “Is this America,” she asked with tears in her eyes, “the land of the free and the home of the brave, where … our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings?” (nmaahc.si.edu); “… your freedom is shackled in chains to mine. And until I am free, you are not free either.” (nmaahc.si.edu); "I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain't no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God's face." (biography.com); "You don't run away from problems—you just face them." (biography.com); "
— Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer
Professional Life
Field of Study: women's rights activist, community organizer, and leader of the civil rights movement
Institution/Corporation: None found
Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degree: Tougaloo College (1964); Shaw University; Columbia College Chicago (1970); Howard University (1972); Member: Freedom Democratic Party; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta;
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 1993 National Women's Hall of Fame; 2025 Presidential Medal of Freedom; Paul Robeson Award, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority; Mary Church Terrell Award, Delta Sigma Theta sorority; National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award;
Achievements: 1969 founded Freedom Farm Cooperative in the Mississippi Delta to empower poor black farmers & sharecroppers to be able to grow their own food; farm grew to over 640 acres; organized Mississippi's Freedom Summer along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who sought election to government offices; 1964 co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP); published her autobiography in 1967; partnered with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) to establish an interracial and interregional support program called The Pig Project to provide protein for people who previously could not afford meat; 1971 co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus; she single-handedly ensured 200 units of low-income housing were built—many still exist in Ruleville, Mississippi today; 1963 released an album "Songs My Mother Taught Me"; 1967 published To Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography;
known for her use of spiritual hymns and biblical quotes
was threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by racists, including members of the police, while she was trying to register to vote
ran for the U.S. House in 1964 but lost
ran for the Mississippi State Senate in 1971
1970 led legal action against the government of Sunflower County, Mississippi, for continued illegal segregation
was the youngest of 20 children born to her parents
from the age of 6 lived on a farm where her family & she were sharecroppers & they all picked cotton
winters of 1924 through 1930, she attended the one-room school provided for the sharecroppers' children, open between picking seasons
loved reading and excelled in spelling bees and reciting poetry
left school at age 12 to help support her aging parents
13 would pick 200–300 pounds of cotton daily while living with polio
1961, a white doctor subjected her to a hysterectomy without her consent while she was undergoing surgery to remove a uterine tumor
she & her husband subsequently adopted & raised 4 children
1 of her daughters died at age 22 of internal hemorrhaging after she was denied admission to the local hospital because of her mother's activism
became interested in the civil rights movement in the 1950s
1972 was elected as a national party delegate
1963 spent 3 days in jail in Mississippi where she was beaten with a baton, it took a month for her to recuperate and suffered permanent damage as a result of a blood clot over her left eye and permanent damage on one of her kidneys
worked on grassroots-level Head Start programs and Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign
adamantly opposed abortion, & believed it & birth control were tools used by Whites to control Blacks & limit their population growth
part of her mission to make land more accessible to African Americans
the Freedom Farm had three main objectives: to establish an agricultural organization that could supplement the nutritional needs of America's most disenfranchised people; to provide acceptable housing development; and create an entrepreneurial business incubator that would provide resources for new companies as well as retraining for those with limited education but manual labor experience
the farm disbanded in 1975 due to lack of funding
is credited with coining the phrase "Mississippi appendectomy", a euphemism for involuntary or uninformed sterilization of black women, a common practice in the South during the 1960s
her tombstone is engraved with one of her famous quotes, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."1994 the Ruleville post office was named the Fannie Lou Hamer Post Office by an act of Congress
The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy was founded in 1997 as a summer seminar and K–12 workshop program
is one of 28 civil rights icons depicted on the Buffalo, New York Freedom Wall
1964, she announced her candidacy for the Mississippi House of Representatives but was barred from the ballot
famed singer Harry Belafonte was among the donors who provided enough funds to purchase the 640 acres for her farm & the coop store, boutique, and sewing enterprise that grew from it
1964, U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to block the television broadcast of her testimony at the Democratic National Convention by scheduling a news conference for the same time but the networks then broadcast it during prime time, giving her speech the ability to reach many more people
opposed the Vietnam War
diagnosed with breast cancer in 1976
Cheryl L. West wrote the play Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, which premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2022
1st learned she had the right to vote at age 44