Fannie walked so…
The following blog post is written by Dr. Stephen Glass, WHS Black Alumni Foundation President.
Born: October 6, 1917
Transitioned: March 14, 1977
Before Stacey Abrams (Spelman College, Class of 1995) created a strategy to address voter suppression in the state of Georgia, that ultimately turned the southern state blue, Fannie Lou Hamer spoke truth to power in the state of Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer was born October 6, 1917 — just before the Spanish Flu ravaged the world in 1918. She was the youngest of 20 children and was born into a system of institutional poverty through sharecropping. From the age of six, Hamer helped her family survive by picking cotton.
In 1962, Hamer attended a meeting organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The purpose of SNCC’s presence in Mississippi was to educate and register 400,000 poor Blacks who had historically been denied the right to vote through multiple voter suppression tactics including voter registration tests, poll taxes, and violence. After the meeting, Hamer and 17 friends attempted to register to vote, however, they failed the registration test. When she returned to her home, Hamer was fired by her boss for attempting to vote. She was also removed from the plantation where she lived and worked for the better part of 18 years. Hamer responded to friends saying, “They kicked me off the plantation. They set me free. It’s the best thing that could happen. Now I can work for my people.” Hamer, then joined SNCC as a fieldworker and worked tireless to register voters in her state. In 1963 she worked with the Council of Federated Organizations - a coalition of SNCC, The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - on what was called the Freedom Vote. Mrs. Hamer was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office. Through this statewide, grassroots movement 80,000 unregistered black citizens cast ballots. This led to Hamer and others founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in the hopes of desegregating the historically all-white, racist Democratic Party. Hamer’s efforts resulted in famous speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention where she appeared on television to critique America and point out the country’s failure to provide equal justice for all. In 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights Act which was designed to ensure the rights of African Americans to register and vote.
While Fannie Lou Hamer was not the first to champion the cause of equal justice, I know she will also not be the last. Stacey Abrams is walking in Hamer’s legacy and truth. However, we know that this work is never done. But thank you, Fannie Lou Hamer, for being a trailblazer in the arena of voting.
