Fanny Lou Hammer: “Just Vote”

Fannie Lou Hammer October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977 Photo source: CreativeDevs

“Our lives have been threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America” – Fannie Lou Hammer, 1964 DNC Convention

Fannie Lou Hammer, a black disabled woman, was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi to a family of sharecroppers, Lou Ella and James Townsend. Her legacy as a civil rights and voting rights advocacy is a prolific example for all those with the desire to create change. Her most notable traits is her perseverance and her ability to adapt strategies.

During the 1960s, Hammer focused her efforts on obtaining voting rights for African- Americans in the United States. Hammer’s most notable work, including but not limited to, leading 17 volunteers to register to vote, organizing with SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, an organization committed to the registration and mobilization of black voters), co-founding MFDP (Mississippi Freedom Democratic, an organization developed to expand the ability of African-Americans to participate in the democratic process of voting), organizing Freedom Summer (an effort to register black voters), and becoming the first black woman . She endured state-sanctioned violence that caused severe injuries in her eyes, kidneys, leg. The damage done to her body is part of the long list of White Supremacy induced disability.

In her journey, she evolved her strategy to incorporating economic freedom for African Americans. This was done through efforts (including, not limited to) establishing low income housing, a “pig bank” (a program to provide black farmers with free pigs), and buying land for black farmers. As a child that grew up in a family of sharecroppers, this was an incredibly powerful move. Sharecropping was an institution designed to keep African-americans in poverty and essentially still stuck with “slave labor”. Since they did not own the land, they were obligated to give much of their crops as payment to the land owners. Landowners would charge as much as 70% of the crops which left workers with very little of their own work. Purchasing land for black farmers, positioned them to keep more of the “fruits of their labor”.

She was an incredibly influential leader and speaker. Fannie Lou Hammer, we honor you.

Sources

“Fannie Lou Hamer’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Speech | 1964 DNC Convention.” YouTube, 20 Aug. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=agBzy3ATja0.

Fannie Lou Hamer Founds Freedom Farm Cooperative.” SNCC Digital Gateway, 24 Sept. 2021, snccdigital.org/events/fannie-lou-hamer-founds-freedom-farm-cooperative.

“Fannie Lou Hamer.” National Women’s History Museum, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer. Accessed 4 March. 2022