Person

Fannie Lou Hamer

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"Home of Fannie Lou Hamer" sign

The Local Politics of Fannie Lou Hamer

By age 44, most people are figuring out how to live and die peacefully. That was certainly not the case with sharecropper and hero Fannie Lou Hamer.

"Until I Am Free"

An online roundtable on a new biography of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Three Mississippi women, denied the right to go onto the House floor at the opening of the new Congress, stand Jan. 4, 1965, outside the Capitol. From left: Annie Devine, Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray.
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Remembering Past Harms is a Key First Step for Achieving Social Justice

Mississippi makes a move to confront a shameful episode from the past.
Heather Booth playing guitar for Fannie Lou Hamer.

Why Fannie Lou Hamer Endures

She’s mostly remembered for one famous speech. Her actual legacy is far greater than that.
Black and white photo of Fannie Lou Hamer in her rocking chair.

Why Fannie Lou Hamer’s Definition of "Freedom" Still Matters

The human rights activist and former sharecropper once said that “you are not free whether you are white or black, until I am free.”

Fannie Lou Hamer's Dauntless Fight for Black Americans' Right to Vote

The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights

Sick and Tired

Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the most important civil rights icons. But her health issues show that racism isn't just a social disease, it's a physical one.
An African American group at the county convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964.

Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
Bayard Rustin gestures at a zoning map.

Bayard Rustin: The Panthers Couldn’t Save Us Then Either

Rustin’s assessment of the lay of the political land was predicated on a no-nonsense understanding of the radicalism of the moment.
Portrait of Medgar Evers.

The Day The Civil-Rights Movement Changed

What my father saw in Mississippi.
Black and white photograph of Mississippi SNCC workers at conference at Tougaloo College, 1965.

SNCC’s Unruly Internationalism

Though the organization’s legacy has been domesticated, its grassroots leadership embraced the global fight for freedom.
A shack on Eastland's plantation, as it appeared in the 1964 film

He Risked His Life Filming A Mississippi Senator's Plantation In 1964

Fannie Lou Hamer is among the sharecroppers interviewed in this unauthorized documentary about the plantation of Dixiecrat James Eastland.

Rosa Parks on Police Brutality: The Speech We Never Heard

The Northern Student Movement considered inviting Rosa Parks to give a speech on police brutality, but ultimately decided against it.

New Age Activism: Maria W. Stewart and Black Lives Matter

Black women have always been equal partners in, if not central to, the tradition of Black protest and liberation movements.
Striking workers at General Motors in 1970.

Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half-Century of American Class Struggle

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.
Henry Holt, a farmer near Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1937, who was moved off land by the Resettlement Administration.

How the Government Helped White Americans Steal Black Farmland

There was once a thriving Black middle class based on farm ownership. But during the twentieth century, the USDA helped erase that source of wealth.
2022 oil painting of Jo Collier

They Called Her ‘Black Jet’

Joetha Collier, a young Black woman, was killed by a white man in 1971, near the Mississippi town where Emmett Till was murdered. Why isn’t her case well-known today?
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
Julian Bond

What Julian Bond Taught Me About Politics and Power

Lessons about organizing from the SNCC co-founder.
Formal daguerreotype photograph of an African American corporal, holding a Colt model 1849 pocket revolver.

From Negro Militias To Black Armament

Guns have always loomed large in Black people's lives — going all the way back to the days of colonial slavery, explains reporter Alain Stephens from The Trace.