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Posts tagged as “Fannie Lou Hamer”

Flowers to Civil Rights and Voting Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer For #WomensHistoryMonth (LISTEN)

Flowers to Civil Rights and Voting Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer For #WomensHistoryMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 24, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

We celebrate grassroots organizer, civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in today’s Daily Drop podcast. Our salute to Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party founder Hamer is based on the Thursday, March 24 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, March 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

“Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” in the 1960s, Mississippi plantation worker Fannie Lou Hamer was fired, threatened by white supremacists, and beaten in police custody when she tried to vote and register others to do the same.

But Hamer would not be silenced. She formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and demanded to represent her state at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Hamer fought for voting rights, education rights, and economic rights and even ran for Senate.

Although she wasn’t rich, traditionally educated or well-connected,  Hamer was a grassroots leader who got involved – and stayed involved — because she believed to her core “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Hamer passed in 1977 after years of dealing with serious health issues, but her legacy as an outspoken and effective activist, organizer and champion for equal rights will never be forgotten.

Last February, rapper and activist Common announced he’s producing a biographical movie on Hamer based on her 1967 autobiography To Praise Our Bridges and the book God’s Long Summer by Charles Marsh, which chronicles the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Just last month, the documentary Fannie Lou Hamer’s America debuted on PBS and can now be seen in full via WORLD Channel on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/5h2MzXavgEg

To learn more about Fannie Lou Hamer, you can read her autobiography on snccdigital.org, that’s SNCC digital dot org, read 2013’s The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like it Is, or check out 2021’s Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain and Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson.

You can also watch clips of Hamer’s speeches on YouTube, and check out links to these and other sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

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Sources:

(paid links)

“America ReFramed” Doc Series Launches Tenth Season with “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” on WORLD Channel and PBS in February 2022

“America ReFramed” Doc Series Launches Tenth Season with “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” on WORLD Channel and PBS in February 2022

By goodblacknews on December 8, 2021

The award-winning documentary series America ReFramed, a co-production of WORLD Channel and American Documentary, Inc., launches its landmark tenth season with the world premiere of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, a portrait of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist.

The season begins with a special presentation on PBS on Tuesday, February 22, 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. ET, followed by its broadcast on WORLD Channel on Thursday, February 24.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America focuses on the incredible life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest grassroots leaders, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the injustices that made her work essential.

Airing during Black History Month, the film is produced by Hamer’s great-niece Monica Land and Selena Lauterer and directed by Joy Davenport. This special is a copresentation with PBS and Black Public Media.

“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a powerful film, one that illustrates the challenges and sacrifices so many faced in fighting for the right to vote,” said Sylvia Bugg, Chief Programming Executive & General Manager at PBS. “We are excited to work with WORLD Channel to bring this exceptional America ReFramed documentary, that highlights contributions of women of color both on screen and behind the camera, to audiences.”

This marks the weekly series’ move to its new Thursday time slot, with many titles available to stream beginning February 22 on worldchannel.org, WORLD Channel’s YouTube Channel and on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer, Sharecropper, Senate Candidate, Voting and Civil Rights Activist

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer, Sharecropper, Senate Candidate, Voting and Civil Rights Activist

By goodblacknews on February 28, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Fannie Lou Hamer. A Mississippi plantation worker turned activist in the 1960s, who, from her own personal desire to claim her constitutional right to vote, was fired from her job, threatened by white supremacists and beaten while in police custody.

Hamer never stopped – she worked with other activists in her church and volunteers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and traveled county to county to register other Black people to vote.

Hamer formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and demanded to represent her state at the 1964 Democratic Convention.

Hamer fought for voting rights, education rights, economic rights (she formed the Freedom Farm Collective to fight for redistribution of wealth from usurious sharecropping) and even ran for Senate.

She was not rich or traditionally educated or well-connected — Fannie was a person who saw injustice, got active and got involved. Among other microcosms of actionable wisdom, she is famous for the quotes, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired” and “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free” – the latter of which I proudly wear on my Fannie Lou Hamer T-shirt.

Hamer passed in 1977 after years of dealing with serious health issues, but her legacy as an outspoken and effective activist, organizer and champion for equal rights will never be forgotten.

In fact, it was announced a few days ago that rapper and activist Common is producing a biographical movie on Hamer based on her 1967 autobiography To Praise Our Bridges and the book God’s Long Summer by Charles Marsh, which chronicles of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

You can also read more about Hamer here: https://snccdigital.org/people/fannie-lou-hamer/ and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Lou_Hamer or read her speeches: https://bookshop.org/books/the-speeches-of-fannie-lou-hamer-to-tell-it-like-it-is/9781617038365

#blackhistorymonth #gettheknowledge
Senator Kamala Harris Accepts Democratic Nomination for U.S. Vice Presidency (READ FULL SPEECH)

Senator Kamala Harris Accepts Democratic Nomination for U.S. Vice Presidency (READ FULL SPEECH)

By goodblacknews on August 19, 2020

Making history as the first Black woman and nominated by the Democratic Party for Vice President, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris from California accepted the nomination tonight at the Democratic National Convention from Delaware, where she is working with Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, her an East Indian immigrant mother, and Donald Harris, a, Jamaican immigrant father, Harris gave a heartfelt, powerful speech acknowledging the support and love of her family as well as so many of the women who blazed the trail ahead of her, such as Mary Church Terrell, Mary McLeod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, Constance Baker Motley and Shirley Chisholm.

Harris also pointed to structural racism for the inequities in America — “education and technology, health care and housing, job security and transportation” — as heightened by the coronavirus, and how she and Biden are committed to doing the work to fulfill the promise of “equal justice under the law.”

To read Harris’ acceptance speech in full, see below:

GirlTrek to Host 80 National #BeLikeMaxine Walks to Celebrate Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ 80th Birthday on August 15th

By goodblacknews on August 13, 2018
(image courtesy GirlTrek)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

U.S. Representative Maxine Waters will celebrate her 80th birthday on Wednesday, August 15th. To pay tribute to this iconic woman who has dedicated 37 years to serving the people, speaking up against injustice and side-eyeing all manner of foolishness from all quarters, GirlTrek is joining AFROPUNK, Color of Change, and thousands of Black folks across the country in a nationwide #BeLikeMaxine celebration.

GirlTrek, the largest national public health nonprofit and movement for Black women and girls, is organizing 80 walks across the United States in honor of Congresswoman Waters’ 80th turn around the sun. With more than 150,000 members nationwide, GirlTrek encourages Black women and girls to use radical self-care and walking as the first practical step to leading a healthier, more fulfilled life.

“We did it for Harriet Tubman because she showed us the way. Reminded it us that it’s OK to walk alone. We did it for Fannie Lou Hamer because she taught us how to organize. Showed us that every woman can be a leader,” said GirlTrek cofounder T. Morgan Dixon. “Now, we do it for Auntie Maxine because she teaches us daily how to find our voice, how to speak truth to power, how to stand in grace against the storm and how to reclaim our time in the process.”

Elected in November 2016 to her fourteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 43rd Congressional District of California, Rep. Maxine Waters is considered to be one of the most powerful women in American politics today. She has gained a reputation as a fearless and outspoken advocate for women, children, people of color and the poor.

GirlTrek is inviting women everywhere to reclaim 30 minutes of time in honor of Auntie Maxine by hosting a #BeLikeMaxine walk in their community with their friends and loved ones. “No walk is too small. You + a friend = a celebration,” Dixon said. “Maxine Waters is a living foremother. We walk in her footsteps. We celebrate her.”

Register a #BeLikeMaxine walk here.

About GirlTrek:

GirlTrek encourages women to use walking as a practical first step to inspire healthy living, families, and communities. In five years, GirlTrek has mobilized more than 150,000 Black women and girls nationwide. By 2020, GirlTrek’s goal is to motivate 1 million Black women and girls to walk for better health.  GirlTrek has been featured in The New York Times, Essence, shondaland.com, E! News, People magazine, The Tom Joyner Morning Show,  and many other national and regional outlets. The TED Talk, Walking as a Revolutionary Act of Self-Care has received more than 1 million views.

GirlTrek Mobilizing #FanniesArmy to Walk Across Major Cities on Oct. 6 to Honor Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer

By goodblacknews on September 25, 2017

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Civil Rights activist and grass roots hero Fannie Lou Hamer would have turned 100 years old this October 6.  GirlTrek, the largest national public health nonprofit and movement for Black women and girls, is celebrating her legacy by hosting 100 national walks.
Known for her courage on the frontlines of the American Civil Rights Movement, Hamer stunned the world with her electrifying account of brutal attacks and local terror in the Jim Crow South. She stood strong, demanding the attention of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson by leading an unparalleled grassroots campaign and political party in Mississippi that delivered over 60,000 votes. Fannie Lou Hamer is responsible for helping secure the 1965 Voting Rights Act and changing the tide of justice.
The scale of her impact is made greater by her life story. Fannie Lou Hamer worked as a sharecropper from age 6. As a young woman, in an extralegal, violent act, she was given a forced hysterectomy. Unbroken, she adopted children. At 44 years old, Fannie Lou Hamer joined the American Civil Rights Movement. From church basements to the White House, Hamer was celebrated for her ability to inspire everyday people to action.
“In the iconic words of Fannie Lou Hamer, we’re ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ She died too soon putting her body on the line for our freedom and we want to celebrate her life in a big way. In her honor, we are going to raise an army of sisters, #FanniesArmy, who will lead 100 walks across America at sunset on October 6th,” said GirlTrek cofounder T. Morgan Dixon.
To participate in #FanniesArmy, walk for 100 minutes at sunset on October 6th wherever you are with family and friends. To be counted, register your walk at https://rebrand.ly/fanniesarmy. The first 100 leaders to sign up will receive special edition #FanniesArmy T-shirts.
“While the country reels from conflict in Charlottesville, this is an opportunity to herald the legacy of an American hero who brought us together,” Dixon said. “Fannie Lou Hamer died too early at 59, her body riddled with heart disease and cancer. I’m reminded of the words of R. Boylorn, [Hamer] ‘never saw death coming because she was too busy taking care of others.’ She worked tirelessly in field offices and late hours registering people to vote. When pain rendered her homebound, she taught Freedom Riders the ways of resistance in her night gown from her front porch.”
Dixon and GirlTrek’s cofounder Vanessa Garrison, national staff and board of directors will travel to Hamer’s memorial statue in her hometown in Ruleville, Mississippi to walk with local trekkers on the centennial celebration of her birth.

Civil Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Biopic to be Scripted by "Remember The Titans" Writer Gregory Allen Howard

Civil Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Biopic to be Scripted by "Remember The Titans" Writer Gregory Allen Howard

By goodblacknews on July 16, 2017

Fannie Lou Hamer (photo via powerpacplus.org)

by Mike Fleming Jr. via deadline.com
Remember the Titans scribe Gregory Allen Howard has teamed with Chris Columbus’ 1492 production company to tell the story of Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper with a sixth-grade education who became an important voting-rights advocate and founded the first integrated political party in the South in mid-’60s Mississippi.
Hamer grew up in a family of 20 kids and picked cotton for most of her life. After going to a doctor to have a tumor removed, she discovered she was given a hysterectomy at age 47 by a white doctor, without her consent, because of a movement by the state to sterilize women to reduce the number of poor blacks in Mississippi.
Hamer became a Civil Rights activist, surviving assassination attempts
Gregory Allen Howard (photo via deadline.com)

and a near-fatal beating to get her moment at the Democratic National Convention, where she challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 with her legendary, “Is This America?” speech.
While LBJ hastily called a ruse press conference in the hope of diverting attention away from her speech, Hamer’s powerful words were widely broadcast and reverberated around the world. Howard, who studied Hamer’s accomplishments as a college student, has long been obsessed with bringing her story to the screen. Hamer died in 1977.
To read more, go to: Civil Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Movie; Gregory Allen Howard script | Deadline

African-American Female Political Leaders Demand DNC Invest in Their Leadership

By goodblacknews on May 25, 2017

(photo via dailykos.com)

by Sameer Rao via colorlines.com
The Democratic Party relies on Black women to be the most consistent and engaged progressive constituency, but rarely supports their political leadership. A group of 27 Black female political advocates and leaders released an open letter demanding that Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Tom Perez stop taking them for granted.”We have voted and organized our communities with little support or investment from the Democratic party for voter mobilization efforts,” reads the letter, which was published by NBC BLK yesterday (May 24).
“We have shown how Black women lead, yet the party’s leadership, from Washington to the state parties, have few or no Black women in leadership. More and more, Black women are running for office and winning elections—with scant support from Democratic Party infrastructure. Well, like civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who testified at the 1964 Democratic convention demanding Blacks have a seat and voice within the Party, we are ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired.'”
The letter’s signatories include elected officials like U.S. congress members Marcia Fudge and Joyce Beatty (both D-OH) alongside advocates like Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory and Higher Heights for America’s Glynda Carr and Kimberly Peeler-Allen. The group collectively recognizes electoral victories by senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and state-level politicians that, despite their strategic importance, did not compel Black women’s inclusion in DNC leadership: Black women also made important progressive wins in Minnesota, where IIhan Omar became the first Somali-American Muslim elected to the state legislature; Kentucky, where Attica Scott became the first woman elected to the state legislature in 20 years; Cook County, Illinois, where Kim Foxx was elected state’s attorney; Orange County, Florida, [where Aramis Ayala became] the first Black state’s attorney in Florida’s history; the state of Texas, [which] elected its first woman Sheriff, Zena Stephens; and Jefferson County, Alabama, [which] elected nine Black women to the judicial branch.
This February, in the DNC elections, we saw an increase in overall diversity within the officer ranks, but no increase in leadership representation of Black women. Since taking office, you have met with and listened to key constituencies. But you have yet to host a Black women leaders convening.”Organizing without the engagement of Black women will prove to be a losing strategy, and there is much too much at stake for the Democratic Party to ignore Black women,” the signers continue. “In the absence of our inclusion in discussions about the Party’s forward movement, we question whether the Party values our loyalty and takes our commitment seriously.”The letter ends with a call for Perez to meet with Black women leaders, which he has yet to publicly confirm or reject. Read the full letter on NBCnews.com.
Source: READ: Black Female Political Leaders Demand DNC Invest in Their Leadership | Colorlines

New African American Center Named After Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer Planned at UC Berkeley

By goodblacknews on August 27, 2016

(photo via takepart.com)
(photo via takepart.com)

article via jbhe.com
The University of California, Berkeley has announced that it will build a new African American Center on campus. The center will be named after Fannie Lou Hamer, the Mississippi-born voting and civil rights activist.
Fannie Lou Hamer (photo via socialfeed.info)
Fannie Lou Hamer (photo via socialfeed.info)

The agreement to establish the center comes after a year of talks among the administration, the Black Student Union and other campus African American groups.
The university has allocated more than $80,000 to refurbish the space for the new center in the Hearst Field Annex.
Na’ilah Nasir, vice chancellor for equity and inclusion at the University of California, Berkeley, stated that “it’s a big deal for our students to know that our administration understands their needs and supports them.  It’s a financially constrained time, but it’s also a time when the administration is thinking about its priorities and values. I think the students should be encouraged that the center is something the campus will really support.”

Statue of Activist Fannie Lou Hamer Unveiled in Mississippi

By goodblacknews on October 11, 2012
fannie-lou-hamer-statue

Scores of men, women and children attended the recent unveiling of a statue honoring the late civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer in her hometown of Ruleville, Miss.  Hamer, who would have been 95 on Oct. 6, is remembered the world over as a woman who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”  At the time of her death, on March 14th, 1977, Hamer was almost penniless, yet her funeral was well attended by celebrities, social activists and political leaders from all walks of life.