Fannie Lou Hamer: Mr. Chairman, my name is Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer. And I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi. We want to register to become first class citizens.
Day One under
Robin Hamilton: She was born a sharecropper. They had nothing. She was one of 20 children and she had to start picking cotton when she was six. My name is Robin Hamilton and I am the director of and producer of the film "This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer." And I own my own production company called ARound Robin Production Company.
Historians say that sharecropping was the modern day slavery because you could never get out of debt. You're living on someone else's land. You were living in a shack that was on their property so they owned that. And you were making so little money picking cotton that there really wasn't any way for you to earn a living.
Adam Kampe: BEFORE SHE FOUNDED HER PRODUCTION COMPANY IN 2012, ROBIN HAMILTON WORKED FOR YEARS AS A JOURNALIST. SO FAR, SHE’S DIRECTED TWO FILMS ABOUT IMPORTANT BLACK FEMALE ACTIVISTS—FANNIE LOU HAMER AND MARY CHURCH TERRELL. ONE THREAD UNITING THESE STORIES IS HOW UNDERTOLD THEY ARE. THE SEED FOR HER FIRST FILM, ABOUT MRS. HAMER, TOOK ROOT IN AN UNDERGRAD CLASS ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS AND WOMEN. SHE READ A BIOGRAPHY BY KAY MILLS CALLED "THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE: THE LIFE OF FANNIE LOU HAMER.” THE BOOK STAYED WITH HER FOR YEARS.
Robin Hamiton: And what I loved about that book was that it gave this incredible history of this woman who had so little in terms of education, in terms of opportunity, in terms of financial freedom; she had none but she was just this incredible force.
This Little Light of Mine up
Adam Kampe: AS MILLS WRITES, “HAMER had a booming voice, AND sang to calm peoples’ fears. Before or after her speeches, SHE would sing a song that soon became associated with her, “This Little Light of Mine.”’ BORN ON OCTOBER 6TH IN 1917 IN RULEVILLE, MISSISSIPI, FANNIE LOU HAMER WAS A REMARKABLE AND BIGGER THAN LIFE ACTIVIST. SHE CAME UP IN A TIME OF ABJECT RACISM, an era where Mississippi law required FOLKS NOT ONLY TAKE A LITERACY TEST BUT ALSO interpret part of their state constitution just to vote. BUT MRS. HAMER DID NOT GO ALONG TO GET ALONG OR COWER IN FEAR. INSTEAD, SHE WENT TO WORK. IN THE FACE OF OBSCENE DISCRIMINATION—AND RACIST VIOLENCE—SHE PUT HER LIFE ON THE LINE TO GET BLACK PEOPLE IN THE DELTA REGISTERED TO VOTE. FANNIE LOU HAMER.
Fannie Lou Hamer: I had attended a voter registration workshop than was returning back to Mississippi. The highway patrol man screamed from the car he was in and said, “Get that one there.” And this man jumped out of his car and opened the back door and told me to get in. And as I went to get in, he kicked me.
I just began to scream when I couldn’t control it. And then the white man got up and began to beat me in my head. I have a blood clot now in the outer to the left eye and a permanent kidney injury on the right side from that beating. These are the things we go through in the state of Mississippi just trying to be treated like a human being.
Adam Kampe: ROBIN HAMILTON
Robin Hamilton: More than one person that I interviewed, even when I was doing my background research, would say “We were scared as hell going through Mississippi and going to voter registration drives, and at night. Even today, there will be pockets in Ruleville where there aren’t a lot of lights, and it’s just these pockets of deep darkness. And I remember one woman I interviewed said “You hear the snap of a twig, and you are worried that someone is gonna come after you with a gun or you’re gonna be beaten.”
She, despite all of this, all of these hardships that had, she decided that I need to take control of my destiny, of my life and she became very active in SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when they came to Mississippi to help organize people to vote. She gave this speech where she said “The establishment has it set up so that there are only a select number of people that can benefit from a system that makes us subservient to that system.” And her attitude was “This is unacceptable. This isn’t the way it’s gonna work anymore. I am ready, and you will be with us, too, to take this on.
Fannie Lou Hamer: I’ve heard several comments from people that was talking about with the people, for the people, and by the people. But that’s not true. Being a black woman from Mississippi I’ve learned long ago that’s not true. It’s with a handful, for a handful, and by a handful. But we gonna change that baby!
Robin Hamilton: She became very instrumental in that movement and made it all the way to the Democratic National Convention in 1964, to demand equal rights for all people in Mississippi particularly to be represented when it came time to cast your ballot for who you wanted to have as a presidential nominee.
Adam Kampe: IN THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT FROM THE FILM, WE’LL HEAR THE VOICES OF 4 INTERVIEWEEES, RESPECTIVELY. SNCC ACTIVIST, HEATHER BOOTH; PRESIDENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY, REV. ED KING; LONGTIME CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, DR. LESLIE MCLEMORE AND SNCC ACTIVIST, DORIE LADNER. PLUS ARCHIVAL TAPE OF FANNIE LOU HAMER HERSELF. HEATHER BOOTH.
Transition to audio from the film
Heather Booth: So the registration drives in the regulator system wasn’t gonna work. So we started to register people for the Mississippi freedom Democratic Party. And Ms. Hamer and Reverend King were the two co-chairs of that party, and our goal then was to get representation of the integrated delegation at the Democratic Convention which was being held in Atlantic City.
Rev. Ed King, Miss Democractic Party: But we worked out in advance what Martin would say what I was going to say as a white Mississippian, that violence that had been directed to me and to others and describe that violence, and that got too much for the white delegation and they tried to shut me up. They knew they couldn’t shut up Martin Luther King, but they weren’t paying any attention to who this woman might be. And I knew, she was gonna be more than Martin.
Fannie Lou Hamer: All of this is on account that we want to register to become first class citizens and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America.
Dr. Leslie McLemore, Activist: She brought to the floor the Freedom Democratic Part what it meant, what it stood for, and the people. So, she shined a certain light on the people in the room. But what she did, she brought special attention to all of us who were delegates, all of us who were form Mississippi.
Fannie Lou Hamer: I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.
Rev. Ed King, Miss Democractic Party: Mrs. Hamer was to talk about herself and people she knew and she came across with such absolute conviction because it was conviction, it had happened.
Dr. Leslie McLemore: Here’s this sixth grade scholar, this sharecropper, talking about her conditions and talking about conditions in Mississippi and the American South.
Fannie Lou Hamer: I am one of 20 children. My mother and father, one marriage, 6 girls and fourteen boys.
Dr. Leslie McLemore In spite of all of these conditions, in spite of the circumstances we associate with Fannie Lou Hamer. Mrs. Hamer still emerges to become a spokesperson for so many people that had been denied the right to participate in the American political systems.
Adam Kampe: Robin Hamilton
Robin Hamilton: It was significant because you had this woman who was up on the same footing as Dr. Martin Luther King, in terms of being a real voice for equal rights. And her movement in Mississippi, her fight really led, paved the way, helped pave the way for the passing of the Voting Rights Act the following year.
Adam Kampe: DORIE LADNER
Dorie Ladner, SNCC Activist: When we came back, we felt very good. We had taken our message to the world. And we wanted the world to hear our message that we were subjugated, we were disenfranchised, we’ve been brutalized, and the world did get an idea about what had been going on. And we took it to the seat of government.
Dr. Leslie McLemore: The convention, as a part of the compromise, promised that moving forward, hence forth, the party would not seat segregated lily-white delegations. So that was one absolute biggie.
back to Robin
Robin Hamilton: So she was this incredible woman who was just a force, just incredible force. And a lot of people don't know about her I think because she didn't represent the black elite at the time; the person that a lot of activists thought should be the face of the movement.
Musical transition
I feel deeply, deeply grateful, as corny as it sounds. I feel grateful for women and men who were able to put themselves on the line the way they did so that I could have the life that I have, and that’s really what struck me when I was in undergrad and I was reading about Mrs. Hamer. I thought “Wow, I’m able to see it in this classroom because of her and the work that so many other people have done.” And it’s not that long ago. That’s what’s so unnerving about it. And there are people today who would like it to go back to what that was. And it’s the same thing for Mrs. Terrell, Mary Church Terrell. She was one of the people who really fought to desegregate lunch counters here in Washington, DC, that eventually led to the desegregation of all practices in the nation’s capital, which is supposed to be a symbol of freedom and democracy ironically enough. I feel as though these women deserve a thank you. Really with Mrs. Hamer, it was just, as silly as it sounds, my attempt to say thank you to her, and if anyone else saw it, I’d be even happier and that’s why this has been an unintentional path that I went on. I’m just deeply, deeply grateful.
This Little Light of Mine up and under
Adam Kampe: THAT WAS ROBIN HAMILTON, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF “THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE: THE LEGACY OF FANNIE LOU HAMER." YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HER AND HER OTHER WORK AT AROUNDROBIN.COM. SPECIAL THANKS TO TONY MITCHELL, OF THE NEH, FOR INTRODUCING ME TO THIS FILM AND TO ROBIN. FOR THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS, I’M ADAM KAMPE.
FILM AND MUSIC CREDITS:
Audio from the film used courtesy of Robin Hamilton.
Excerpts of Day One and Napal from the album Oil by Paul Rucker, used courtesy of Paul Rucker.
This Little Light of Mine by Fannie Lou Hamer, from Fannie Lou Hamer: Songs My Mother Taught Me used courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
This Little Light of Mine by Nadja Scott and the Divine Anointing Choir
