Post election conversations about the power of the Black vote would be remiss without referencing Fannie Lou Hamer, a courageous Mississippi share cropper who routinely risked life and limb to register Black voters during the 1960’s. Although Mrs. Hamer was savagely beaten and lived under the constant threat of death, she was unstoppable. She made it her business to register members of the most impoverished Mississippi communities, where deceit and racial terrorism had prevented Black citizens from voting for almost 100 years. Joining and leading multiple efforts to secure Black Mississippians’ right to vote, Mrs. Hamer became a principal voice and strategist in the movement that compelled passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Click here to view a remarkable 27-minute video that outlines the work of Fannie Lou Hamer and how her ancestral footprints provide a sacred space in which Stacy Abrams and other Black vote warriors can now stand.