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Fannie Lou Hamer New Ideas for the Civil Rights Movement and American Democracy LINDA REED At the time of Fannie Lou Townsend's birth into the world, America had been involved in World War I for a little over a year. A war that was fought to make the world safe for democracy did not mean the same for Fannie Lou Townsend, her family and all other African Americans in the United States. As sharecroppers, the Townsends lived under desperate circumstances in Mississippi. Like other black people, they would remain second-class citizens, but their baby daughter would become a freedom fighter to include all Americans in democracy.1 Born Fannie Lou Townsend to James Lee Townsend, a Baptist preacher, and Ella Townsend on October 6, 1917 in rural Montgomery County, Mississippi, this youngest child oftwenty shared a birth year with John F. Kennedy, and the two would coincidentally gain national notoriety in the 1960s. Ella and Jim moved to Sunflower County when Fannie Lou was two years old, and the child received her six to eight years of education there. School years for sharecroppers averaged only about four months, and Fannie Lou said she missed many of those, even, because she had very poor clothing. At the age of six, Fannie Lou began working in the cotton fields and worked many long years chopping and picking cotton until the plantation owner, W. D. Marlow, learned that she could read and write.2 In 1944 Fannie Lou Townsend became the time and record keeper for Marlow and in 1945 married Perry Hamer, a tractor driver on the Marlow Plantation. Fannie Lou married for the first time, but she numbered as the third wife for Perry Hamer. She affectionately grew to call him "Pap." For the next eighteen years of her adult life, Fannie Lou Hamer worked as sharecropper and timekeeper on the plantation four miles east of Ruleville , Mississippi, the place where she and Perry made their home. As time and record keeper, Hamer had a good knowledge of math, and she 69 70 Fannie Lou Hamer: New Ideas for the Movement and Democracy held the respect ofthe landowner and the other families who worked with the landowner as sharecroppers. Fannie Lou Hamer's life changed August 31, 1962 when she suffered economic reprisal after an unsuccessful attempt to vote in the county seat of Indianola. The usual intimidation amounted to persons' names appearing in the local newspaper, but Fannie Lou Hamer said all her trouble with the landowner came immediately. Marlow, the plantation owner, appeared at the Hamers' home the very day to ask that she not attempt to register to vote. Familiar with physical violence that often followed economic reprisals and having received threats, Fannie Lou Hamer left her family to stay with friends. But the move did not stay the violence, and Hamer and her friends miraculouslyescaped rounds ofgunshots fired into the friends' home when a person or persons yet unknown discovered her presence there. Despite the denial ofthe right to vote and the subsequent violence and economic intimidation, Fannie Lou Hamer became an active member of the recently formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Ruleville. Economic reprisals, long a way to obstruct concerted efforts by blacks who demanded equality, did not deter Hamer. She took the literacy test several times, and in 1963 at the age of 45, she became a field secretary for SNCC and a registered voter, an action that had led to death for a few determined persons. It became clear in the 1960s that Fannie Lou Hamer, with the assistance of SNCC and other organizations, had new ideas for the civil rights movement and American democracy. From 1963 onward, Hamer worked in Mississippi with voter registration drives and with programs designed to assist economically deprived black families who faced problems with which she said she felt especially familiar. The youngest oftwenty siblings whose parents seldom were able to provide adequate food and clothing, Fannie Lou Hamer saw a link between the lack of access to the political process and the poor economic status of blacks. She was instrumental in starting Delta Ministry, an extensive communitydevelopment program in 1963. On April 24, 1964 Hamer took part in the founding of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, becoming vice chairperson and a member of its delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which challenged the seating of the regular all-white Missis- [3.144.48.135] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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