Person · 1917–1977

Fannie Lou Hamer

A Mississippi sharecropper turned voting-rights organizer whose televised testimony shook the 1964 Democratic convention.

A grassroots leader of [[disenfranchisement|the fight for the vote]].

The youngest of twenty children, Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper until she tried to register to vote in 1962 and was evicted, jailed, and beaten for it. She became a fearless SNCC organizer and a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Her 1964 convention testimony — "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired" — was so powerful that President Johnson called an impromptu press conference to pull cameras away from her. She spent her life organizing for the vote and against poverty.

Medical Racism Political Disenfranchisement

On the timeline

June 21, 1964
Freedom Summer
Volunteers register Black voters in Mississippi; three are murdered by the Klan.

Resources

Books·1

Book

I've Got the Light of Freedom

Charles M. Payne

Landmark "bottom-up" history of grassroots organizing in Mississippi.

Speeches·1

Speech· Primary

Fannie Lou Hamer's 1964 DNC testimony

Fannie Lou Hamer

Hamer's televised account of being beaten for trying to register to vote.

The web

Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.

documented by·Thread
Medical Racism
Hamer's forced "Mississippi appendectomy" exposed coerced sterilization of Black women.