Fannie Lou Hamer
60 years ago, to this day, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled from Ruleville, Mississippi, to Atlantic City and stood before the Democratic National Convention to challenge the all-white delegation representing her home state.
Her bravery was met with jeering, vitriol and even censorship as television broadcasts quickly cut off her speech from reaching the homes of the convention’s constituents. However, her plea for justice and civil rights still resounded all over the world, especially when she took her story all the way to the Capitol in order to protest the 1964 Mississippi House election in which she and the rest of the state’s Black population were barred from voting in.
People have said year after year, ‘Those people in Mississippi can't think.’ But after we would work ten and 11 hours a day for three lousy dollars and couldn't sleep, we couldn't do anything else but think. And we have been thinking a long time [sic]. And we are tired of what's going on. And we want to see now what this here will turn out like for the 4th of January. We want to see, ‘Is democracy real?’”
When she wasn’t singing Freedom songs and anthems, she was galvanizing the country on its quest for racial and civil equality through her stirring speeches recounting the abuse and racism she suffered at the hands of white supremacy. In 1964, she co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, organizations dedicated to fighting voter inequality.
And that's when Mrs. Hamer emerged because she starts to sing. She's singing these Freedom songs: This Little Light of Mine and all of that, I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around… I think Mrs. Hamer's singing kind of shored up the group, loosing up the fear in the group.”Charlie Cobb, journalist, professor and former activist within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), on Fannie Lou Hamer.
In her later years, she became frustrated with the political process and started pouring into her community in Ruleville differently – she launched the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969, a program that enabled poor Black farmers to own land on which they could grow cash crops for taxes and sow vegetables and farm pigs to feed the co-op’s members. Through the co-op, Hamer empowered and supported over 1,000 families until her passing in 1977.
The time has come now when we are going to have to get what we need ourselves. We may get a little help here and there, but in the main, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
Hamer’s legacy is still felt decades after her fiery condemnation in Atlantic City on Aug. 22, 1964. In 2004, Distinguished Professor of Social Work and Africana Studies Patricia Reid-Merritt coordinated the first-ever Fannie Lou Hamer Human & Civil Rights Symposium. The symposium, entering its 21st year this October, brings renowned scholars to campus to honor and introduce Hamer’s legacy to students while challenging them to consider the ways in which they want to advance human and civil rights for all.
In 2018, Stockton named the Event Room in the then-new Atlantic City campus in her honor and, in 2023, Merritt donated a (resin mold of a) statue of Hamer to Atlantic City, which currently resides in Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall – the same place she gave the speech that solidified her legacy as an iconic civil rights activist who is sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Stockton Professor Donates Fannie Lou Hamer Statue to A.C.
October 10, 2023
Atlantic City, N.J. — Thanks to the donation of a Stockton University professor, the legacy of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer has been permanently enshrined in the place where she changed history.
An over-7-foot-tall resin statue of the woman who fought for voting rights for Black Americans was unveiled Oct. 10 during a ceremony at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The hall was the site of the 1964 Democratic National Convention where Hamer made history by giving testimony in opposition to an all-white Mississippi delegation.
“It’s going where it belongs,” said Patricia Reid-Merritt, a Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies and Social Work, before the ceremony. “For all the great things and contributions that Fannie Lou Hamer made to the civil rights struggle, what she is known for is that speech in Atlantic City. It’s a tribute to her legacy and Stockton’s efforts to uplift her legacy.”
The statue is a resin mold of a Hamer statue designed by Brian Hanlon, an acclaimed Toms River-based master sculptor. The original statue was erected in Hamer’s hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi, in 2012 by the National Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Statue Committee. Reid-Merritt was the chair of that committee, and Hanlon felt it was fitting to donate the resin statue to her.
-- Story by Mark Melhorn
20th Annual Symposium Celebrates Civil Rights, Social Justice
October 10, 2023
Galloway, N.J. – Following an emotional statue unveiling in Atlantic City, Stockton University continued paying tribute to civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer with the 20th annual Human & Civil Rights Symposium in the Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, Oct. 10.
This year’s symposium included a performance of gospel songs by the Stockton Freedom Singers, led by Beverly Vaughn, professor of Music; a video compilation of previous symposiums; poetry recitation by Stockton faculty and a keynote address by California’s first Black Secretary of State, Shirley N. Weber.
Weber’s address emphasized how much Hamer and her legacy informs how she serves the people who elected her to office. Weber, a daughter of former sharecroppers in Arkansas, said that the people who most inspired her were the people who embodied Hamer’s hope for a better tomorrow.
– Story by Loukaia Taylor
It was 56 years ago this week that civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer traveled from her home state of Mississippi to Atlantic City, where she and other members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged the all-white delegation representing the state at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
In her testimony, she talked about the beatings she had endured during her fight for the right to vote.
Although her efforts failed to unseat the delegation, her speech galvanized the nation, and in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed. Stockton University pays tribute to her historic presence in Atlantic City with the annual Fannie Lou Hamer Human and Civil Rights Symposium in October, and in 2018 named the Event Room in the new Atlantic City Campus in her honor.
This Voice was originally published in 2020. Stacey Clapp, director of Strategic Communications and member of the Campus Committee of Diversity and Inclusion Excellence, wrote this for the 56th anniversary of the speech.
Learn more about Fannie Lou Hamer's powerful testimony from PBS's American Experience series:
