Fannie Lou (Townsend) Hamer (1917 - 1977)

Born 6 Oct 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Perry Hamer — married about 1945 in Mississippi, United States

Died 14 Mar 1977 at age 59 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, United States

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Biography

Fannie (Townsend) Hamer is Notable.

This profile is part of the Mound Bayou, Mississippi One Place Study.

Fannie (Townsend) Hamer was a part of the Civil Rights Activist Movement.

Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist, civil rights leader, and philanthropist. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi's Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.^[1]

The 1930 U.S. Census recorded Fannie L. Townsend, age 12, in the household of her father Jim Townsend and mother James Townsend Ella Bramlett Townsend, in Beat 5, Township 22, Range 3, Sunflower County, Mississippi on the R. W. Manning Plantation. They were farmers. She was born in Mississippi as were her parents and was recorded as Negro. She was recorded as a farm laborer and had attended school that year. ^[2]

On that same census are recorded 2 grandchildren: May B White (4) and Mack F White (2)

In Her Own Words

From "An Oral History with Fannie Lou Hamer"^[3]:

(This interview was conducted in 1972 for the Mississippi Oral History Program of The University of Southern Mississippi).

Excerpt from Interview:

McMillen: Mrs. Hamer, why don't we begin with something about your childhood life? Where were you born and what was your life like when you were a little girl?

Hamer: Well, I was born fifty-four years ago on a plantation in the hills, the kind of place that's something similar to Hattiesburg, the place where you are from. In fact I was the last child of twenty children, six girls and fourteen boys. I'm the twentieth child of a very poor family, sharecroppers [who] never had anything--family life. [We] didn't hardly have food to eat. If you would just wait a minute. [Mrs. Hamer quieted a young child playing at her side.]

My family moved to Sunflower County when I was two years old; that's fifty-two years ago [that] they moved here to Sunflower County, so I was mostly raised here in the Delta. In fact, from two years old up until now I've been in the Delta. My family moved here, and we moved on a plantation; the landowner was named Mr. E. W . Brandon. So we lived on his place until I was grown, but it was just hard. Life was very hard; we never hardly had enough to eat; we didn't have clothes to wear. We had to work real hard, because I started working when I was about six years old. I didn't have a chance to go to school too much, because school would only last about four months at the time when I was a kid going to school. Most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear to that [school]; and then if any work would come up that we would have to do, the parents would take us out of the school to cut stalks and burn stalks or work in dead lands or things like that. It was just really tough as a kid when I was a child.

McMillen: Did you work in the fields?

Hamer: Yes, I worked in the fields....They didn't have any factories; wasn't nothing to do but field work. That's all you had to do, though. This time of year, well, when there was no cotton to chop, we would be raking corn stalks or doing something like this. But there was never, never a time in April that kids would be in school when I was a kid--never a time that a kid would be in school in April....

McMillen: Let's move forward in time, Mrs. Hamer. When was the first time you really wanted to vote?

Hamer: That was 1962. (See the full transcript at link below)^[3].

Honors and Awards

Mrs. Hamer received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humanities from Tougaloo College and Shaw University. She also received honorary degrees from Columbia College and Howard University.

She was honored with the National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award, The Paul Robeson Award from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and The Mary Terrell Award from Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. Delta Sigma Theta made Mrs. Hamer an Honorary member of their sorority.

Fannie Lou was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. On February 18,1995, The United States Post Office in Ruleville, Mississippi was named in Fannie Lou Hamer's honor thanks to Congressman Bennie Thompson.

Fannie Lou Hamer passed away on 14 Mar 1977. She is buried in the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden with her husband.

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Fannie Lou Hamer
2. ↑ "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RC7-CDT?cc=1810731&wc=QZFQ-561%3A648806401%2C650565001%2C648852101%2C1589282428 : 8 December 2015), Mississippi > Sunflower > Beat 5 > ED 28 > image 3 of 76; citing NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002).
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} "An Oral History with Fannie Lou Hamer" transcript, University of South Mississippi Library's Oral History and Cultural Heritage, 1972

• Find A Grave: Memorial #19859
• Gale Research Company. Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Detroit, MI, USA: Gale Research Company, 2008.
• Wikidata: Item Q438438

See also:

• The Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden
• Recording of her testimony before the Credentials Committee, 1964