Fannie Lou Hamer was a dedicated voting and women’s right activist, a ground-breaking community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement with a voice to be heard. Read the full report below.
Fannie Lou Hamer, born Fannie Lou Townsend, was raised in Montgomery, Mississippi where she worked alongside her family at the age of six on B.D. Marlowe’s plantation. Hamer was raised in poverty and left school at the age of 12 to work full-time. She later met & married her husband Peter Hamer.
Hamer was subject to medical malpractice by a white male doctor, who performed a non-consensual hysterectomy during a uterine tumor removal surgery. This led Hamer and her husband Peter to the adoption of their two daughters.
Determined to help fight for the right of African Americans to vote, Hamer became inspired to take action after attending a meeting with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. By 1962, she was an organizer for SNCC.
Hamer was fired from her work at the plantation in retaliation for leading 17 volunteers to register to vote at the Indianola, Mississippi Courthouse. Each registrant was denied voting access due to a biased literacy test. The Hamers were immediately evicted from their home on the Marlow plantation and robbed of their possessions. The Hamer’s relocated to Ruleville, MS.
In 1963, Hamer and several other African American citizens successfully completed a voter registration program in Charleston, N.C., but were arrested shortly after for sitting in a “whites-only” bus station. Hamer suffered several life-long injuries after being beaten while jailed. Despite the hardship, Hamer travelled far and wide to tell her story. She became nationally known after co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MDFP), which challenged the Democratic Party’s efforts against the participation of African American citizens in elections.
The MDFP attended the Democratic National Convention in 1964 in an effort to win a seat in Mississippi’s delegation. Hamer spoke fiercely to the Credential Committee as she called for integrated state delegations. Hamer’s speech was so moving that President Lyndon Johnson decided to immediately hold a televised press conference to shut out her telecast. Johnson’s efforts backfired as news organizations aired her words nationwide in full later that evening. Notably, she stated, “All my life I've been sick and tired… Now I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Four years later, Hamer and the MDFP succeeded in claiming an official seat in Chicago’s delegation, making Hamer the first African-American, and the first woman from Mississippi, to do so.
She didn’t stop there. In 1964, Hamer founded Freedom Summer, an organization aimed at helping African Americans register to vote. Freedom Summer was supported by hundreds of college student volunteers, both black and white. After Hamer was barred from the Mississippi House of Representatives ballot, she went on to protest the election with two other African American women, making them the first African American women to stand in the presence of the U.S. Congress. Hamer also co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, which is active to this day.
At the end of Fannie Lou Hamer’s career, she turned to economics to make a powerful change for African Americans. The same year she won her official delegate seat, Hamer organized a “pig bank” that provided free pigs to African American farmers so they could breed and raise them for profit. She then launched the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), which operated until the mid-70’s. FFC bought 640 acres for farming and low-income housing to be African American-owned. To this day, some of the housing still stands in Ruleville.
At the age of 59, Hamer died of breast cancer. Hamer was undoubtedly an accomplished woman, with so many successful ventures that pushed the civil rights movement further.
GERALDINE BLEDSOE FORD (1926 - 2003)
Geraldine Bledsoe Ford was a woman of firsts. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Bledsoe went on to receive a stunning victory as the first elected female African American judge in the nation. Read the full report below.
Geraldine Bledsoe Ford was born in 1926 to Harold E. Bledsoe and Mamie G. Bledsoe in Detroit, MI. Her father was an attorney and her mother, a state civil servant. Ford grew up in an intellectually charged household with focused discourse on law, politics, and social equality. In 1944, Ford was selected from the top high school students in the nation to meet President Franklin Roosevelt. Ford graduated with her bachelors from University of Michigan, and with her law degree from Wayne State University in 1951. Later, she joined her fathers law firm, Bledsoe, Ford, and Bledsoe. Using her skills in public service, she became the first African American woman to become the Assistant Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Most notably, Ford was the first African American woman to be elected as a judge on the Detroit Recorder’s Court without prior appointment. While a handful held skepticism around her candidacy, Ford held her position on the court for 33 consecutive years following. In 199, a year before retiring, Ford served as a Circuit Court Judge. Among Ford’s many legacies on the court and in the public sector, one of her main points of action involved focusing on the retention and development among college students in relation to affirmative action. Her efforts in establishing this important module in American education has allowed further development for the entire community.