Black History fact #19:Fannie Lou Hamer

What's going on, everybody. Welcome to another episode of a day with crime, black history fact edition. Of course I am your man, David. Let's jump in. 

Today's fact it's going to be on the one. The only Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie Lou Hamer began civil rights activism in 1962, continuing until her health declined. Nine years later, she was known for her use of spiritual hymnals and quotes and her resilience and leading the civil rights movement for black [00:01:00] women and Mississippi.

She was extorted threatened, harassed, shout at and assaulted by racist, including police while trying to register for and exercise her right to vote. She later helped and encouraged thousands of African Americans in Mississippi to become registered voters and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work and programs like the freedom farm co-op.

She unsuccessfully ran for the us Senate in the 1964 and the Mississippi state Senate in 1971 in 1970. She led legal action against the government of sunflower county, Mississippi for continued illegal segregation. Fannie Lou Hamer died on March 14th, 1977 at age 59 and mound Bayou, Mississippi. Her Memorial service is widely attended and her eulogy was.

By us ambassador to the United nations, Andrew Young, she was parked muesli inducted into the national women's hall [00:02:00] of fame in 1993. All right, so let's learn a little bit more about Fannie Lou Hamer, Fannie Lou Hamer, Townsend, October 6th, 1917, and pass away March 14th, 1976. Wasn't American voting and women's rights activists, community organizer in a leader in the civil rights movement.

She was the co-founder and vice chair of the freedom democratic party, which she represented at the 1964 democratic national convention Hamer also organized Mississippi's freedom summer, along with the student nonviolent coordinating committee, she was also a co-founder of the national women's political caucus.

An organization created to recruit, train and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office towels, or was born in Montgomery [00:03:00] county, Mississippi. She was the last of the 20 children of Ella and James Lee Townsend. After some of their animals, stock was mysteriously poison. She suspected a local racist had done it.

And she said of this incident, our stock got porcelain. We know that this white man had. That white man did it just because we were getting somewhere white people never liked to see Negroes, get a little success. All of this stuff is no secret in the state of Mississippi. In 1919, the talent has moved to sunflower county, Mississippi to work as sharecroppers on WD Marlo's plantation from age six, Fannie page cotton with her.

During the winters of 1924 through 1930, she attended the one room school provided for the sharecropper's children, open between picking seasons, Fannie loved reading and excelled in spelling bees and reciting poetry. But at age 12, she had [00:04:00] to leave school to help support her aging parents. By age 13, she would pick 200 to 300 pounds of cotton daily while living with.

Fanny continued to develop her reading and interpretation skills and Bible study at her church. And later years, Lawrence schoolyard admired her ability to connect the biblical expectations for liberation and the struggle for civil rights, anytime that she wanted to and move in and out to any frames of reference in 1944, after the plantation owner discover her literacy, she was selected as his time in record keeping.

The following year, she married Perry pap Haimer attractor driver on the Marlow plantation, and they remain there for the next 18 years. Hammering her husband wanted very much to start a family, but in 1961, Haimer received a hysterectomy by a white doctor without her consent while undergoing surgery to remove or uterine tumor for sterilization was a [00:05:00] common method of population control in Mississippi that targeted poor African-American.

Members of the black community called the procedure, a Mississippi appendectomy. The hammers later raised two girls. They adopted one died of internal hemorrhaging after she was denied admission to the local hospital because of her mother's activism. Haimer became interested in the civil rights movement.

In the 1950s, she heard leaders in the local movement speak at annual regional council of Negro leaderships are the RSE and L conferences held in mound Bayou, Mississippi. The yearly conferences discuss black voting rights and other civil rights issues, black communities in the area faced. So Fannie Lou Hamer is the proper person to cover being that we are, and it was in an election year.

I think this goes to kind of show you where African-Americans were because she was out there trying to get women all African-Americans to. [00:06:00] When it comes to parties, most African-Americans, especially back in those days were of the democratic party. I'm not getting into politics here on this podcast today.

There's a lot of reasons why African-Americans are not Republicans or other ones, but that's for a different story. However, because of activism, like what Fannie Lou Hamer did. This is why the election turned out the way that it did this year. It wasn't that the election was rigged. It was that for the first time, in all these years, African Americans turned out to the polls that they never had done before.

And this is what Fannie Lou Hamer was fighting for back in her day. Now to the women out there, just imagine that you go in to surgery. To have a tumor removed, has nothing to do with your reproduction organs at all, but you wake up and you find out that you now [00:07:00] have a hysterectomy and you never having kids imagine how that would make you feel.

Well, this is something that happened all the time. And the sad thing was is this wasn't back in the thirties. Wasn't back in the forties. This is in 1961. But Mississippi had a law on the books that allowed them to do this. And they called themselves being able to control the black poor population. So black women going in for one procedure was coming out with hysterectomy, which is not right at all.

So a little bit about her civil rights activism that she was also doing. So on August 31st, 1962. Fannie Lou Hamer first learned about the constitutional right to vote from volunteers at the student nonviolent coordinating committee who had visited her and mounted by you. She began to take direct political action in the civil rights movement.

And on August 31st, she traveled with [00:08:00] other activists to Indianola, Mississippi, hoping to register, to vote the registration tests crafted to keep blacks from voting, asked her to explain the fact though law. And she quoted, I knowed as much about the facto law. As a horse knows about Christmas day. She recalled rejected.

She came home to find the boss, man raising cane. She had better withdraw her registration. She was told because we're not ready for that in Mississippi. I didn't try to register for you. Hammertoe her boss. I tried to register for myself. She was immediately fired and kicked off the plan. Her husband was required to stay on the land until the end of the harvest hammer move between homes over the next several days for protection on September 10th, while staying with friend and Mary Tucker hammer was shot at 16 times in a drive by shooting by a racist, no one was [00:09:00] injured in the event the next day Haimer and her family evacuated to nearby Tallahatchie county for three months for in retaliation, by the KU Klux Klan for her attempt to.

On December 4th, just after returning to her hometown, she went to the courthouse in Indianola to take the literacy test again, but failed and was turned away. Hammer told the register that you'll see me every 30 days till I pass. I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared?

The only thing they could do was kill me. And it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I can remember. She stated so. Yes, if you guys never do the struggle for African Americans to vote, here's just some of it. They did concoct the test because they knew that African-Americans could not pass.

Because most of them, probably all [00:10:00] of them was slaves back in that time. Right. Unless you came up on some of the good fortunes of a couple of other people that I've mentioned through while doing these facts for you guys, but she wasn't one of them. So, because she was illiterate and she could not read that.

Well, of course, she's not going to know anything about any of the facto laws. So they did that to keep African-Americans. From voting, but that would not stop fairy LaMer. On January 10th, 1963 hammer took the literacy test. A third time. She was successful. It was informed that she was now a registered voter in the state of Mississippi.

However, when she attempted to vote that fall, she discovered her registration gave her no actual power to vote. As her county also required voters to have two poll tax reasons. This requirement had emerged in some mostly former Confederate states after the [00:11:00] right to vote was first given to our races by the 1870 ratification of the 15th amendment to the United States constitution.

These laws along with the literacy test and local government acts of coercion were used against blacks and native Americans hammer later paid for and acquire the requisite poll tax receipt. Hammer began to become more involved in the student nonviolent coordinating committee. After these incidents, she had attended many Southern Christian leadership conferences, which she at times taught classes for and also various SNCC workshops.

She traveled together signatures for petitioners to attempt to be granted federal resources for impoverished black families across the south. She also became a field secretary. For voter registration and welfare programs for the SNCC, many of these first accidents to attempt to register more black voters in Mississippi were met with the [00:12:00] same problems Haimer had and trying to register herself.

So after all of that, after they put that test in for her to make her fail, she passed it, but then found out when it was time to vote that her county required to have poll receipts was they had put that in place. Because all people were given the right to vote. It's an occasional note. What a poll tax receipt is, is also load as head of tax or capitation is a tax levy as the fixed sum on every liable individual.

So that means that she had to pay money now to vote. And as you just heard, she did that after becoming a field secretary for the SNCC in 1963. Hammer decided to attend a pro citizenship conference by the Southern Christian leadership conference or the SCLC in Charleston, South Carolina, traveling by bus with co activists.

The party stopped for a break. And when NOLA, [00:13:00] Mississippi, some of the activists wouldn't solve their local cafe, but were refused service by the waitress shortly after Mississippi state highway patrol, man took out his Billy club and intimidated the activists and to leaving one of the group decided to take down the officer's license plate.

And while doing so the patrol man and a police chief into the cafe and arrested the party hammer, left the bus and inquired. If they could continue their journey back to Greenwood Mississippi. At that point, the officers arrested her as well. Once in county jail, Hammer's colleagues were beaten by the police in the booking room, including 15 year old, June Johnson for not addressing officers as.

Hammer was then taken to a sale where two inmates were ordered by the state trooper to be her using a black Jack to police insured. She was held down doing the almost fatal beating. And when she started to scream, beat her further hammer was also groped repeatedly by officers during the assault. And when she [00:14:00] attempted to resist, she stated an officer walked over and took my dress, pulled it up over my shoulders, leaving my body, exposed to five.

Another in her group was beaten until she was unable to talk of third. A teenager was beaten, stumped on and stripped and activists from the SNCC came the next day to see if he could help, but was beaten until his eyes were shut. When he did not address an officer in the expected deferential manner hammer was released on June 12th, 1963.

She needed more than a month to recuperate from the beatings and never fully recover. Though the incident left profound, physical and psychological effects, including a blood clot over her left eye and permanent damage on one of her kidneys, Hamer returned to Mississippi to organized voter registration drives, including the 1963 freedom ballot, a mock election and the freedom summer initiative.

The following. She was known to the volunteers or freedom summer [00:15:00] as a motherly figure who believed the civil rights effort should be multiracial in nature. In addition to her Northern GEZ, Haimer played a host to Tuskegee university, student activists, semi young, Jr. And Wendell Paris, young and perish grew to become profound activists and organizers under hammers.

Young was murdered in 1966 at a standard oil gas station and Macon county, Alabama for using a whites only restroom. All right. So that was the police brutality side of it that Fannie Lou Hamer had to endure. And no, she never recovered. She had serious issues with her health after that. Some was, you could see some, you couldn't.

But that she still wouldn't give up. So she went right back to the trail to fight for the civil rights that she was fighting for, because nothing was going to be able to deter her from doing that. So she ends up creating pretty much her own party. So in 64, [00:16:00] Haimer helped. Co-found the Mississippi freedom democratic party or the MFD P in.

To prevent the regional, all white democratic parties attempts to stifle African-American voices and to ensure there was a party for all people that did not stand for any form of exportation and discrimination, especially towards minorities following the founding of the MDP hammer and other activists traveled to the 1964 democratic national convention to stand.

That's the official delegation from the state of Mississippi. Hemorrhage televised system when it was interrupted because of a schedule speech that president Lyndon B Johnson gave to 30 governors in the white house, east room, but most major news networks broadcast her testimony later that evening to the nation giving hammer and the MMTP much exposure.

All of this is on account. We want to register to become first class citizens. And if the freedom democratic party is not seated. Now our question of. [00:17:00] It's the America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks, because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings.

And America stated Fannie Lou Hamer, Senator Hubert Humphrey tried to propose a cover model on Johnson's behalf that would give the freedom democratic party, two seats. He said this would lead to be reformed convention in 1960. The MFD P rejected the compromise with the hammer saying we didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we got in here.

We didn't come all this way for no two seats. When all of us is tired afterward, all the white members from the Mississippi dedication afterwards, all the white members from the Mississippi delegation walked out in 1968. The MDP was finally. After the democratic party adopted a clause that demanded [00:18:00] equality of representation from their states delegations.

And in 1972 hammer was elected as a national party delicate. So here's a story kind of behind that a little bit. Cause it says that her feature was her testimony was interrupted because of a schedule speech by then president Lyndon B Johnson. Well, that was. Because they didn't want her bird or her message to get out.

They didn't want other African-Americans or other people to get excited about this new democratic party or to give it any steam. So when they knew she was coming, they plan to have that speech at that time, then they'd be just had already scheduled, right. That, you know, that speech to be given. So they plan her time when she would come up right around that time.

So we'll cut, but it backfired. Because still all the major networks still played it after the fact. So they got away with nothing. So trying to compromise to give them two seats, [00:19:00] which means that they would have absolutely really no power. And that may be a lot of people won't even listen to them. And she declined that because that's not what she wanted.

She wanted it to be looked at as equal. And she wanted everybody. We looked at as equal up underneath the voting laws and being able to have. Um, parties that represented different people in Congress, and this is what she did. All right. So we'll go here now to the end. Uh, there's a lot more than you can read about Fannie Lou Hamer.

I would be sure to put this link down for you so that you can read all about this incredible woman, but, uh, her later life and death, as I had stated earlier, while she was having surgery 61 to move that tumor at 44. She was also given the hysterectomy. And that was, of course, without consent by a white doctor, it was a frequent occurrence on the Mississippi's compulsory sterilization plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the [00:20:00] state hammers credited with coining the phrase, Mississippi appendectomy, as a euphemism for the involuntary or uninformed sterilization of black women, common in the south, in the 1960s.

She came out of an extended period in hospital for nervous exhaustion in January, 1972 and was hospitalized again in January of 1974 for a nervous breakdown by June of 1974, Haimer was said to be an extremely poor health. Two years later, she was diagnosed with and has surgery for breast cancer. Haimer died a couple of cases of hypertension in breast cancer on March 14th, 1976.

At the age of 59 at Taborian hospital bound by you, Mississippi. She was buried in her hometown of Ruleville Mississippi. Her tombstone is in gray with one of her famous quotes. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Her primary Memorial [00:21:00] service held at a church was completely full and overflow servers was held at Ruleville central high school with over 1500 people in the.

Andrew Young United States ambassador to the United nations, spoke at the RSC HHS service saying none of us would be where we are now. Has she not been there then? So you guys ever heard the same from your parents or somebody else that I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. That's where it came from.

It was coined by Fannie Lou Hamer. Always one of her famous sayings. So here's where her legacy stands now as of today, because she was given many awards. So Haman received many awards, both in her lifetime and PAF muesli. She received a doctor of law from Shaw university and honorary degrees from Columbia college, Chicago in 1970 in how a university in 1972, she was inducted into the national women's hall of fame in 1996.[00:22:00] 

Haimer also received the Paul Robeson award from alpha Kappa alpha sorority, the Mary Church, Terrell award from Delta Sigma, theta sorority, the national Sojourner truth meritorious service award. She is an honorary member of Delta Sigma feta. Our remembrance for her life was given in the us house of representatives on the 100th anniversary of her.

Which is October 6th, 2017 by Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in 1970 Ruleville central high school holiday, Fannie Lou Hamer day, six years later, the city of Ruleville itself celebrated a Fannie Lou Hamer day in 1977. Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson wrote in 95 south. All of the places we've been in hammers.

Tanisha coats, the scarf a 1994 live solo version of the song as a haunting and somber owed [00:23:00] in 1994, the Ruleville post office was named the Fannie Lou Hamer post offers by an act of Congress. Additionally, the Fannie Lou Hamer national Institute on citizenship and democracy was founded in 1997 as the summer seminar and K through 12 workshop.

In 2014, it was merged with a council of federated organizations or the CFO civil rights education complex on the campus of Jackson state university Jackson to create the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute at C O F O a human and civil rights interdisciplinary education center. The hammer Institute as CFO provisor research, library, and outreach program.

And there is also a Fannie Lou Hamer public library in Jackson, a 2012 collection of suites by puppeteer and composer. Wadada Leo Smith who grew up in segregated, Mississippi 10 freedom summers includes Fannie Lou Hamer and the [00:24:00] Mississippi freedom democratic party, 1964 as one of his 19 sweets. A picture book about Hammer's life, voice of freedom, Fannie Lou Hamer, spirit of the civil rights movement.

Was written by Carole Boston Weatherford. It won a Coretta Scott King award Haimer is also one of 28 civil rights icons depicted on the Buffalo New York freedom wall in a quote from Haimer speech at the 1964 democratic national convention is carved on one of the 11 granite columns at the civil rights garden in Atlantic city, where the convention was held.

Fannie Lou Hamer freedom high school was formed in the Bronx New York with a focus on humanities and social justice. And in 2017, the Fannie Lou Hamer black resource center opened at the university of California at Berkeley in 2018, the Mississippi democratic parties, Jefferson Jackson, dinner fundraiser was renamed the hammer, winter dinner and our hammer and former governor William winter, [00:25:00] and the third annual women's March held in Atlanta city.

New Jersey in January of 19, 2019 was dedicated to Hammer's life. Several hundred people attended representing many organizations, several students from Fannie Lou Hamer, freedom high school attended despite a state of emergency declared by New Jersey, governor Murphy due to an impending snow storm. All right, guys, there, you have it on the incredible Fannie Lou Hamer.

She did all that she could, and she is the reason. A big reason why African Americans, especially women right now has that right to vote.

 all right, guys that does with this. And I thank you for tuning in to yet another black history fact here. Join me tomorrow, I have another one for you. 

As always need to get ahold of us, feel free to drop a line. At a day with crime@gmail.com. [00:26:00] Also, don't forget to visit the website, www.adaywithcrime.com. It is your one stop shop for everything that is a day with crime. Alright guys, as always be safe all there and be good to yourself. and each other. And I'm going to catch you guys on the next one.