Speaker 1: With that in mind, it's time for the Way Black
Speaker 1: History Fact that I'm going to have to get through
Speaker 1: this quickly because there's a lot here, but it's very important,
Speaker 1: I promise. Today's a Way Black History Fact is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Underground Beach Club. From the Streets to the Beach.
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Speaker 1: This comes from Women's History dot org. And we're talking
Speaker 1: about Fanny lou Townsend Hamer. Remember that name. She's a
Speaker 1: very amazing person, all right. She rose from humble beginnings
Speaker 1: in the Mississippi Delta to become one of the most important, passionate,
Speaker 1: and powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements,
Speaker 1: and a leader in the efforts for greater economic opportunities
Speaker 1: for African Americans. Hamer was born on October sixth, nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the twentieth and last child of
Speaker 1: sharecroppers Luella and James Townsend, and age six, Hamer joined
Speaker 1: her family picking cotton. By twelve, she left school to work.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty four, she married Harry Hamer, and the
Speaker 1: couple toiled on the Mississippi Plantation owned by bad Marlowe
Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty two. Because Hamer was the only worker
Speaker 1: who could read and wrote, she also served as the
Speaker 1: plantation timekeeper. In nineteen sixty one, Hamer received a hysterectomy
Speaker 1: by a white doctor without her consent while undergoing surgery
Speaker 1: to remove a uterine tumor. Such forced sterilization of black
Speaker 1: women as a way to reduce the black population was
Speaker 1: so widespread it was dubbed a Mississippi appendectomy. Unable to
Speaker 1: have children of their own, the Hamers adopted two daughters.
Speaker 1: That summer, Hamer attended a meeting led by civil rights
Speaker 1: activist Jane Foreman of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee
Speaker 1: SNCC and James Bevell of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC.
Speaker 1: Hammer was incensed by efforts to deny blacks the right
Speaker 1: to vote. She became an SNCC organizer and on August
Speaker 1: thirty first, nineteen sixty two, led seventeen volunteers to register
Speaker 1: to vote at Indian App Indianola, Mississippi Courthouse, sorry denied
Speaker 1: the right to vote due to an unfair literacy test.
Speaker 1: The group was harassed on their way home when police
Speaker 1: stopped their bus and fined them one hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: the trump up charge that the bus was too yellow
Speaker 1: that night. Right that night, Marlowe fired Hamer for her
Speaker 1: attempt to vote. Her husband was required to stay until
Speaker 1: the harvest. Marlowe confiscated much of their property. The Hamers
Speaker 1: moved to Ruleville, Mississippi, and Sunflower County with very little.
Speaker 1: In June nineteen sixty three, after successfully competing a voter
Speaker 1: completing a voter registration program in Charleston, South Carolina, Hamer
Speaker 1: and several other black women were arrested for sitting in
Speaker 1: a whites only bus station restaurant in Winona, Mississippi. At
Speaker 1: the Winona jail House, she and several of the women
Speaker 1: were brutally beaten, leaving Hamer with lifelong injuries from a
Speaker 1: blood clot in her eye, kidney damage, and leg damage.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty four, Hamer's national reputation soared as she
Speaker 1: co founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the
Speaker 1: local Democratic Party's efforts to block black participation. Hamer and
Speaker 1: other MFDP members went to the Democratic National Convention that
Speaker 1: year arguing to be recognized as the official delegation, but
Speaker 1: Hammer spoke before the Credential Committee calling for mandatory integrated
Speaker 1: state delegations. President Lyndon Johnson held a televised press conference
Speaker 1: so she would not get any television airtime. But her
Speaker 1: delegations had become a reality, and Hamer was a member
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi's first integrated delegation. All right, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to finish this, but in nineteen sixty four, Hamer
Speaker 1: helped organize the Freedom Summer, which brought hundreds of college
Speaker 1: shoes in black and white to help with African American
Speaker 1: voter registration and segregated South from skipped down. Frustrated by
Speaker 1: the political process, Hamer returned to economic strategy for greater
Speaker 1: racial equality. In nineteen sixty eight, she began a Pig
Speaker 1: Bank to provide three pigs to black farmers to breed, raise,
Speaker 1: and slaughter. A year later, she launched a Freedom Farm Cooperative.
Speaker 1: I have to skip down. There's so many great things here,
Speaker 1: but traveling, fundraising, and bailing health took her from the
Speaker 1: day to day operations, and she died of breast cancer
Speaker 1: at age fifteen nine in nineteen seventy seven. Please read
Speaker 1: more about her