Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6, 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi. Her parents were sharecroppers and farmed land on a plantation. Fannie was the last child of twenty children, six girls and fourteen boys. She contracted polio as a child and because there was no vaccine for polio at the time, she was left with a limp. Although she was short and had a limp, her mother always told her to "stand up no matter what the odds."At the age of six, she began picking cotton to help the family. Fannie only attended school after the harvest, which wasn't for very long, she said, She dropped out of school after the sixth grade. Even though she did not obtain a formal education, she became a dynamic speaker and civil rights worker.
On June 3, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights workers arrived in Winona, MS by bus. They were ordered off the bus and taken to Montgomery County Jail. The story continues "...Then three white men came into my room. One was a state highway policeman (he had the marking on his sleeve)... They said they were going to make me wish I were dead. They made me lay down on my face and they ordered two Negro prisoners to beat me with a blackjack. That was unbearable. The first prisoner beat me until he was exhausted, then the second Negro began to beat me.
I was limp. I was holding my hands behind me to protect my weak side. I began to work my feet. My dress pulled up and I tried to smooth it down. One of the policemen walked over and raised my dress as high as he could. They beat me until my body was hard, 'til I couldn't bend my fingers or get up when they told me to. That's how I got this blood clot in my eye - the sight's nearly gone now. My kidney was injured from the blows they gave me on the back."
Mrs. Hamer was left in the cell, bleeding and battered, listening to the screams of Ann Powder, a fellow civil rights worker, who was also undergoing a severe beating in another cell. She overheard white policemen talking about throwing their bodies into the Big Black River where they would never be found.
In 1964, presidential elections were being held. In an effort to focus greater national attention on voting discrimination, civil rights groups created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This new party sent a delegation, which included Fannie Lou Hamer, to Atlantic City, where the Democratic Party was holding its presidential convention.
Fannie Lou Hamer spoke to the Credentials Committee of the convention about the injustices that allowed an all-white delegation to be seated from the state of Mississippi. Although her live testimony was pre-empted by a presidential press conference, the national networks aired her testimony, in its entirety, later in the evening. Now all of America heard of the struggle in Mississippi's delta.
I have selected Fannie Lou Hamer because despite all odds she refused to give up. Even though she was nearly beaten to death she never turned back. Hamer is noted for saying that "The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember." Hamer truly epitomizes a Strong and Determined Black Woman.
Surprisingly some of own people do not know about Hamer. She is one of those forgotten Civil Rights Leaders. Just because she did not give up her seat or did not march with King, her efforts truly made a difference. She wanted to her voice to be heard and it was heard by all of America.
