Hamer was a voting rights activist, and became a leader in the civil rights movement. She was a founder of both the Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women's Caucus.
Her attempts to exercise her constitutional right to vote were repeatedly thwarted, so she became active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), joined their voters' rights mission, and organized the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
In 1963, she road by bus from Mississippi to attend a conference by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Charleston, South Carolina. When the bus stopped for a break, the local restaurant refused them service and called the police. The police arrived and beat the travelers with billy clubs, arresting some, including Hamer. At the jail, the travelers, including a 15-year-old girl, were beaten and sexually abused by police and other inmates. When a representative of SNCC arrived the next day to assist, he too was beaten badly.
After release, Hamer required over a month of recuperation for the beatings from which she never truly recovered. Although physically and psychologically damaged by the events, she returned to voter registration drives.
She traveled with a delegation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and demanded to be seated as the official Mississippi delegates, which was met with resistance from the mainstream Democratic Party delegation from Mississippi. Although a compromise was offered by Hubert Humphrey, Hamer stood her ground and eventually all white members of the Democratic delegation walked out. At the 1968 convention, the MFDP was seated as the official delegation, and in 1972 Hamer was elected as a national party delegate.
She received honorary doctorates during her lifetime and posthumously, and was enshrined in the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Fannie Lou Hamer represents everything that is great about Americans, and all who opposed her represent the failings of America. Fannie Lou Hamer is an American hero.
See this four-minute video about Hamer from the Smithsonian: https://youtu.be/J99ldHD6qeQ
#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange
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