Fannie Lou Hamer: A Garden and a Pig

Fannie Lou Hammer and Ella Baker attending the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), 1964 © Johnson Publishing Company

In continuing the spirit of Black History Month, we couldn’t truly be driven by justice without highlighting the work of Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie Lou was born to sharecroppers, living her entire life on a plantation. In 1962, she was inspired to exercise her right to vote in Mississippi.

After being rejected by the registrar, Hamer began her journey as a civil and women’s rights activist, who later would encourage thousands of other Black folx to register to vote in a predominantly white supremacist state at the time.

But it was not easy. Throughout her life, Fannie Lou would face attempted murder, beatings so awful by the Mississippi police she endured permanent damages, a non-consensual hysterectomy by a white doctor, attempts by the President Johnson to interrupt her broadcasted speech, and even getting pulled over and fined in a bus full of Black people trying to register to vote for “being too yellow.”

Fannie Lou Hamer singing on the Meredith March Against Fear, June 1966, Jim Peppler Southern Courier Photograph Collection, ADAH

Still, Fannie Lou persevered. Known for her unrelenting courage and determination, Hamer went on to co-found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which she represented at the National Democratic Convention, run for Senate and State Senate, and be amongst the first 3 black women to be seated at the House of Representatives as a recognized delegate. She also founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative, which helped obtain 680 acres for the Black community in Sunflower County, MS to collectively farm on, and started a pig bank for folx to raise them and feed their families.

This woman believed in basic human rights for her people. Her work in civil rights, local economics, and school desegregation remains a piece of the foundation of activism today. We honor Fannie Lou Hamer by striving to carry on her legacy of strong leadership in the fight for human rights, starting of course at a grassroots level.