Picture Books

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer

Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by Ekua Holmes. 2015. 45 pages.
Illustrated biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, activist for voting and economic rights from Mississippi.

Time Periods: 20th Century, 1920, 1945, 1961, 1975
Themes: Voting Rights, African American, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity
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voiceoffreedom9780763665319 Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement is the story of Fannie Lou Hamer in poetic form. It is infused with Hamer’s own quotes and colloquial style that defined her skill as leader and speaker for the Civil Rights Movement. This book charts Fannie Lou Hamer’s life from her family beginnings as a sharecropper to her run for the Mississippi State Senate.

The story includes her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Weatherford provides further notes on Hamer’s life, in addition to a timeline of the Civil Rights Movement from her birth in 1917 to her death in 1977.

Using earth toned hues, Ekua Holmes provides a visual feast that complements Carole Boston Weatherford’s prose. Although this is a picture book, educators should be informed that it delves into mature topics such as Hamer’s forced sterilization.

ISBN: 9780763665319 | Candlewick Press

Learn more about Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer from profiles at SNCC Digital Gateway and Mississippi History Now (MDAH) by Kay Mills.

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Related Resources
Victoria Gray and MFDP delegates demonstrating | Zinn Education Project
Teaching Activities (Free)

Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Teaching Activity. By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View.
Role play on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action. For grades 7+.

Teaching Activities (Free)

Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020.
Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

Articles

Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Article. By Howard Zinn. From Chapter 6 of You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Zinn describes the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) voting rights campaign called Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Books: Non-Fiction

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

Book — Non-fiction. By Kay Mills. 2007. 390 pages.
First-hand accounts of Fannie Lou Hamer’s emergence as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Many Minds, One Heart
Books: Non-Fiction

Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America

Book — Non-fiction. By Wesley C. Hogan. 2009. 463 pages.
An innovative study of what the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) accomplished and, more importantly, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time.

Films

Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders

Film. By Joan Sadoff, Robert Sadoff, and Laura Lipson. 2002. 60 minutes.
Documentary film on women in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

This Day in History

Oct. 6, 1917: Fannie Lou Hamer Born

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist, was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi.

This Day in History

Aug. 6, 1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Convention

The MFDP held a State Convention with 2,500 people in Jackson, Mississippi.

This Day in History

Aug. 22, 1964: Sharecroppers Demand Delivery of Full Suffrage in the U.S.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and the other members of the MFDP at the Democratic National Convention, questioned the nation about the lack of “one person, one vote” in the United States.