walk with me a biography of fannie lou hamer

For those whose lives she touched and transformed, for those who heard and followed her voice, she was the embodiment of protest, perseverance, and, most of all, the potential for revolutionary But Fannie Lou Hamer would not be held back. Standard-bearer, President Lyndon Johnson-tried to contain.

She used her brutal beating at the hands of Mississippi police, an ordeal from which she never fully recovered, as the basis of a televised speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, a speech that the mainstream party-including its She summoned and used what she had against the citadel-her anger, her courage, her faith in the Bible, and herĬonviction that hearts could be won over and injustice overcome. Which recruited her to help with voter-registration drives, Hamer became a community organizer, women's rights activist, and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Starting in the early 1960s and until her death in 1977, she was an irresistible force, not merely joining the swelling wave of change brought by civil rights but keeping it in motion. And she was denied the most basic of all rights in America-the right to cast a ballot-in a state in which Blacks constituted nearly half the population.Īnd so Fannie Lou Hamer lifted up her voice.

Subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world in which white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers.

This is an inspiring story that goes a long way to filling in some of the gaps in American history as it is told. We owe her an incalculable debt of gratitude. Even after a brutal beating at the hands of Mississippi police left her partially disabled for life, she kept on keeping on. Born the 20th child of former slaves and sharecroppers, she endured every indignity growing up and from that experience, forged a life-long commitment to fight for justice. Finally, a thorough and detailed biography of one of the Civil Rights Movements' fiercest warriors, Fannie Lou Hamer.

Walk with me a biography of fannie lou hamer