Another View Looks at the Legacy of Civil Rights Activist
Fannie Lou Hamer – Courage and Faith
On NJN Public Television
Tuesday, October 19, at 6:30 pm
Rebroadcast: Wednesday, October 20, at 11:30 pm;
and Thursday, October 28, at 9 pm

STATEWIDE – With the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act approaching, Another View takes a look back at the legacy of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and her extraordinary life as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Another View: Fannie Lou Hamer – Courage and Faith airs on NJN on Tuesday, October 19, at 6:30 pm; Wednesday, October 20, at 11:30 pm; and Thursday, October 28, at 9 pm. Another View can be seen on NJN’s digital channels; please check the web site for dates and times.

This half-hour special highlights Hamer’s personal sacrifice in the struggle for voters’ rights and equality and looks at the current generation of political activists whom Hamer has inspired. Hamer, the granddaughter of a slave, was born into a family of sharecroppers in 1917. In August 1962 she attended a meeting held by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. The following year involvement in voter registration efforts left her and others jailed and brutally beaten. Hamer recalls that “The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.”

This experience led Hamer to fight harder for those denied the vote. She came to national prominence in 1964 with her dramatic testimony at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her words shed light on the voting discrimination in Mississippi and challenged the seating of the all-white Mississippi delegation.

This Another View special includes archival footage along with emotional interviews from former members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The MFDP was established in April 1964 at The Council of Federated Organizations monthly state convention to challenge the state's "regular" Democratic party, which for decades had denied blacks the participation in the electoral process.

The program includes interviews with key members of the civil rights movement such as US Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton who is now in her seventh term as the representative for the District of Columbia. Named by President Jimmy Carter as the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she came to Congress as a national figure, civil rights and feminist leader, tenured professor of law, and board member of three Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Norton has been identified as one of the 100 most important American women and one of the most powerful women in Washington.

“Young people today do not need to engage in hero worship of Fannie Lou Hamer. She would not have appreciated that. And I knew her well to the day she died,” states Representative Holmes Norton. “They need to ask themselves can I really admire Fannie Lou Hamer if I have not registered to vote. Because Fannie Lou Hamer tried three times before she registered to vote. Was thrown off the plantation because she registered to vote, was beat in jail because she registered to vote. So the first thing that you have to do if you admire Fannie Lou Hamer is register to vote and then get yourself there on Election Day.”

Linda L. Coles is the executive producer of Another View.