US History

Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Social Movements

Women

African Americans

This collection uses primary sources to explore Fannie Lou Hamer and the civil rights movement in rural Mississippi.

A clip of students demonstrating against the Vietnam War including a short speech by Fannie Lou Hamer, August 7, 1971.

An article from *Memphis World* reporting Hamer’s thoughts on medical care for African Americans, May 9, 1964.

Transcript:

**JIM CROW MEDICAL CARE HIT** 
GREENVILLE, Miss.— 
Mississippi's first Negro woman candidate
for U. S. Congress, Mrs. Fannie.
Lou Hamer of Ruleville, spoke
here recently on "Medical Care and
Pubic Health" in Mississippi, and
Washington County in particular.
Mrs. Hamer said there were
only six Negro doctors in Washington County where the Negro
population is 43,408 or 352 percent, a situation forcing Negroes
to seek help from white doctors.
(There are 35,230 whites in the
county).

"At the white doctor's office
we're put in a little over-crowded
room and made to wait all day
until the doctor treats his white
patients. She told the crowd that
throughout the 2nd Congressional
District, where she is running for
Democratic nomination, the death
rate is twice as high for Negroes as
for whites.

"One third of the Negro babies
born in Washington County each
year are delivered by midwives.
Only two white babies out of 823
born last year were delivered by
midwives. And people wonder why
the white infant mortality rate is
26.1 percent but 67.2 percent for
Negroes," she said.

Mrs. Hamer attributed this to
segregated hospital facilities "which
lower the quality of patient care
and violate professional ethics,"
and "the poverty of segregation."
"Poverty and poor health form
an unbreakable circle, one which
need attention from the people
who are supposed to represent us,
she said.

An article from *Memphis World* about Hamer being refused a place on the ballot at the Democratic National Convention, October 31, 1964.

Transcript:

**Miss Commission
Refuses Names For
Negro Candidates** 
JACKSON, Miss. — (NPI) 
 —Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, vice chairman of the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party delegation which
sought to replace the all-while
regular Mississippi delegates at the
recent Democratic national convention, and two other state civil
rights workers, have been refused
places on the ballot for the Nov.
3 general election, by the Mississippi
State Election Commission, the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee has reported.

Barred from the ballot along
with Mrs. Hamer of Ruleville,
Miss., SNCC said, were Dr. Aaron
Henry of Clarksdale, NAACP state
chairman, and Mrs. Annie Devine
of Canton. Dr. Henry had tried to
qualify as an independent to oppose U. S. Sen. John Stennis of
Mississippi, an arch-segregationist,
in the regular Nov. 3 election.
All three, along with two other
Negroes — Mrs. Victoria Gray of
Hattiesburg and Harold Roby of
Canton, will run against white opponents in a mock Freedom Vote
election is designed to spotlight national attention on "the gross in-
equalities of the Mississippi electoral system," the SNCC said.
The FDP also will campaign actively for the election of President
Lyndon B. Johnson and his vice
presidential running mate Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

Audio clips from an interview in which Harry Belafonte reflects on Hamer’s significance and impact, January 28, 1991. 

The interviewer, Kay Mills, is the author of *This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer*, an award-winning biography of Hamer. Harry Belafonte is a singer, songwriter, and activist for civil rights and human rights. 


An excerpt from a FBI file record detailing the arrest of Hamer and five others for trying to use a bus terminal bathroom, June 1963. 

Fannie Lou Hamer and five other voter registration workers were jailed and severely beaten while in police custody. Hamer suffered a broken arm as a result of the attack.

A photograph of an African American cotton plantation worker in the Mississippi Delta in 1939.

A photograph of an African American at a plantation store in the Mississippi Delta in 1939. 

Plantation stores in the rural south in the early twentieth century were owned by the same landowners who would often require sharecroppers and farmers working on the property to shop at the store. Often, white and black farmers and sharecroppers would purchase items on credit and repay their debt with crops they harvested.


A photograph of a group at the county convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964.

An article from *Memphis World* describing a mock ballot among African American voters, November 14, 1964.

Transcript:

**UNOFFICIAL VOTE** 
JACKSON, iMss. — (NPI) 
—Some 45,230 Negroes went to the
polls here, during a pre-election
four day mock balloting to pick
their favorites in the Presidential
election. The returns showed that
45,218 were for Johnson and 12 for
Goldwater. The polling, conducted
by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party — barred from operating in the state and also from having its congressional candidates
placed on the ballot — covered 34
out of 41 counties, and demonstrated what Negroes who were refused
registration, would have done if
they had the vote.

An article from *Memphis World* about the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Freedom Drive, September 5, 1964.

Transcript:

**Mississippi Summer Project Ends;
Mississippi Freedom Drive Begins** 
GREENWOOD, Miss. 
—The Mississippi Summer Project has ended and the Mississippi Freedom
Project has begun.

The summer-long drive - involving over 900 college students, doctors, nurses, lawyers and ministers
began June 21 and ended this week.
The Mississippi Freedom Project,
a continuation of the summer's
work, began immediately.

Over 200 of the summer workers
will stay in Mississippi. They join
the 83 permanent staff members
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who
have been working in Mississippi
for the last three years.

The SNCC national office, located here through the summer,
will move back to Atlanta, Ga.
The summer's four main thrusts
- voter registration, Freedom
Schools, Community Centers and
political action - will continue.
By the summer's end, there were
41 Freedom Schools in 20 communities throughout the state. Total
enrollment was 2,165. There were
175 full-time Freedom School
teachers.

Summer workers established 13
Community Centers, staffed by 61
workers, offering literacy classes,
art, music, drama, recreation,
health and children care programs,
and libraries. Two centers - in
Harmony and Mileston - are being built from the ground up by
local people and volunteers.

Over 55,000 Negroes registered on
"Freedom Registration" forms for
the Freedom Democratic, the group
that successfully challenged Mississippi's all-white regular Democratic Party at, the National Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.
Regular voter registration efforts were not as successful. For
instance, only 2 of the 123 Leflore
County Negroes who took Mississippi's tortuous registration test
between June and July became
registered voters. In contrast, 3,384
Leflore County Negroes registered,
on Freedom Registration forms.

SNCC workers hope to spread
"Summer Project" activities through
out other deep South states, also,
especially in Eastern Arkansas,
Central Alabama and Southwest
Georgia were SNCC drives have
been underway for several years.

A photograph of African American day laborers in the Mississippi Delta in 1940.

A photograph of participants at a Freedom Summer meeting in 1964.

Questions

1. Describe how Hamer connects the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam in her speech captured in the [news clip](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/849).
2. After viewing the photographs of the [plantation worker](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/854), [plantation store](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/855), and [day laborers](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/859), describe how they reflect the conditions in which Hammer grew up, lived, and worked for more than 40 years before becoming active in the civil rights movement. How did these conditions lead to her activism in the Mississippi Delta during the civil rights movement? 
3. Describe Hamer’s thoughts on healthcare for African Americans as reported in the [article from *Memphis World*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/850).
4. Considering the [article about Freedom Summer](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/858) and the [photograph of participants at a Freedom Summer meeting](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/860), describe the Freedom Summer movement in 1964.


Activity

1. Using documents in this set, write a brief narrative of the ways that the Freedom Summer impacted voting access in Mississippi, paying particular attention to significant obstacles faced by the activists as well as the triumphs they achieved.
2. Considering Hamer’s anti-war speech in the [news clip](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/849), Belafonte’s statements about Hamer’s beliefs in his [interview](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-civil-rights-movement-in-rural-mississippi/sources/852), and the two newspaper articles about Hamer, write a one-page fictional account of how Hamer would respond to the following contemporary events: the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).


Teaching Guide: Exploring Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi

Resources

1. [Fannie Lou Hamer biography](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/freedomsummer-hamer/), American Experience - PBS. 
2. [Fannie Lou Hamer](https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer/), National Women’s History Museum.
3. [Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party](http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_mississippi_freedom_democratic_party/), King Encyclopedia, Stanford University. 

Overview

Born to sharecroppers in rural Mississippi in 1917, the youngest of twenty children, Fannie Lou Hamer knew well the realities of racism, discrimination, and poverty. She used her knowledge in grassroots activism on behalf of voters’ rights, African Americans, and civil rights. “Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer provided a voice for oppressed and disenfranchised black majorities in the Deep South in the 1960s through her strength, passion, courage, and faith. Hamer epitomized the persistent struggles and victories of the US civil rights movement. African Americans in the Mississippi Delta, activists in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party, and participants in the Freedom Summer were all influenced by her personality and leadership. This primary source set offers readers a greater understanding of Fannie Lou Hamer. 

English

Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi

fannie-lou-hamer-civil-rights-movement-rural-mississippi_08_34f340f27814f55833c885a8258fea88.jpg

Courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis via Missouri Hub.

Beymer, Richard, “Group at the County Convention of the Freedom Democratic Party during Freedom Summer,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/34f340f27814f55833c885a8258fea88.

A photograph of a group at the county convention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 8 of 12 in the Primary Source Set Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi