On June 9th, the African diaspora commemorated the American heroine, Fannie Lou Hamer. On this day, in 1963, several women including Fannie Lou Hamer were arrested for attending a registration workshop in Charleston SC, and viciously beaten and sexually assaulted by Winona police who were later acquitted by an all-White jury.
Ms. Hamer (October 6, 1917 — March 14, 1977) was the last of about 20 siblings, granddaughter of slaves, and child of family sharecroppers. In her teens, she developed a strong interconnection with reading and interpreting the bible, later to be known for her ability to connect biblical exhortations for liberation and the struggle for civil rights. She was known for her impassioned speeches and testimonials wherein she used scripture, hymnals, and straightforward real talk to lead the civil rights movement for Black women in the state, eventually co-founding the National Women’s Political Caucus.
During her lifetime, Hamer was extorted, subjected to a hysterectomy without her consent, shot at, harassed, arrested, and brutally attacked for trying to register and exercise her right to vote. Hamer became more involved in the civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conferences (SCLC), and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), where she became a field secretary for voter registration and welfare programs. She traveled throughout the south to obtain federal resources for poverty-stricken Black families and attempted to register more Black voters in Mississippi.
After recovering from the Winona assault, Hamer returned to help organize voter registration drives, such as the 1963 Freedom Ballot and the Freedom Summer initiative, confounding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. The work she started to empower disenfranchised voters in the South is still being carried out to this day.
