Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer. . In 1962 at age 44, Hamer tried to register to vote; the next day she was fired from her job on the plantation east of here. She became a civil rights activist, opening her Ruleville home to Freedom Summer workers and other activists. She earned a reputation as an electrifying speaker, especially as a delegate of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She fought racism, injustice, and poverty until her death in 1977., Fannie Lou Hamer When young civil rights activists arrived in Ruleville in 1962 to work on registering black citizens as voters, they were looking for local black people who could help. Fannie Lou Hamer, then forty-four, was attracted to the workers, especially the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). "They treated us like we were special and we loved 'em," she said. "We trusted 'em. For the rest of her life, Hamer dedicated herself to the civil rights movement. She had found her calling, her mission., On August 31, 1962, seventeen people accompanied Hamer to Indianola to try to register to vote. None of them were registered that day. On the bus ride home Hamer sang to calm people's fears, inspiring them with a song she would bring to national attention, "This Little Light of Mine." Upon returning to Ruleville, Hamer lost her job on the W. D. Marlow plantation, where she had worked as a timekeeper for eighteen years. Her husband, Perry, a tractor driver, was also fired. Later that fall she finally became a registered voter. , Hamer became a SNCC field secretary in 1963. When her bus stopped in Winona, Mississippi, on the way home from a SCLC citizenship training school, she and others were arrested at a cafe with a "whites only' policy. Police had two other black prisoners brutally beat Hamer in jail; an all-white jury acquitted the law officers., In Freedom Summer 1964, civil rights activists challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention on the grounds that blacks had been systematically excluded from voting. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) selected sixty-eight delegates, with Hamer as the delegation's vice chair. Fannie Lou Hamer testified to the convention's Credentials Committee about discrimination faced by black citizens trying to register to vote. The MFDP refused a compromise offered to seat two delegates and returned to political organizing., A frequent lecturer, Hamer was known for a signature line. "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." In 1968 the Democratic Party seated her as a delegate. In 1969 she established Freedom Farm with a goal of providing food and some economic independence to local people. She remained active in anti-poverty efforts such as Head Start. She ran unsuccessfully for the Mississippi State Senate in 1971. Hamer died March 14, 1977. Hundreds of people attended her funeral.