October 6, 1917 - Fannie Lou Hamer - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Mississippi’s black civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer is born. Fannie Lou Hamer – born in Montgomery County, Mississippi on October 6, 1917 – became known as the woman who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” The youngest of 19, she was the granddaughter of slaves who had yet to gain basic human rights In 1962, a civil rights group came to her town and Hamer was the first to volunteer to register to vote. Hamer and other volunteers were jailed and beaten by police and Hamer was thrown off the plantation where her family worked. Undeterred, Hamer took on the job of field secretary for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee which sent her around the U.S., registering people to vote. In 1964, Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and attended the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There, on live television, she challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to give African Americans standing at the convention. She also informed the Democratic Party’s credentials committee of the violent tactics being used in many states to prevent African Americans from voting. Her statements prompted the committee to grant two MFDP delegates speaking rights, which in turn broke the cycle of whites-only delegations for the Democratic Party. Hamer died on March 14, 1977.

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