(Photo: Fannie Lou Hamer)

One day in August 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer found herself in the hallway outside of Martin Luther King Jr.’s hotel suite in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Several national civil rights leaders and political operatives were crammed in his suite strategizing over Black representation at the Democratic National Convention. Prior to the convention, Hamer had helped to establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in order to challenge the Democrats’ all-white Mississippi delegation. Even though Hamer’s home state was under the spotlight, there was apparently no room for her in the talks. When an associate told Hamer that she should “listen to the leaders,” she asked: “Who [is] the leader?” The men around her with money and degrees actively tried to sideline her. Yet, it was Fannie Lou Hamer, a former sharecropper with limited formal education and limited financial resources, who ended up stealing the show at the convention and captivating the nation with an electrifying speech about voter suppression and state-sanctioned violence against Black Americans.

Hamer’s powerful oratory arose from a remarkable life that historian Keisha N. Blain covers in her latest book, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America. Although Hamer came to be defined by her speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, it was only one episode in a larger career in which she faced persecution and terror for her faith-inspired activism defending human rights.

Born on October 6, 1917, Hamer was the youngest of twenty children and was only six years olds when she began working in cotton fields. As an adult, through an encounter with activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she learned about the power of voting rights to effect change in the structural barriers that families like hers faced. Because of her views about Black Americans’ constitutional rights, Hamer experienced several harrowing attacks, including a drive-by shooting at a friend’s home and a brutal beating at the hands of police officers in Winona, Mississippi. On March 14, 1977, at the age of fifty-nine, Hamer died of health complications after continuing to face financial struggles and mounting medical debt.

Hamer anticipated and embodied what legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw would call “intersectionality,” recognizing how gender oppression was tied to dimensions of race and class. She also understood liberation as something that connected all people, whether across racial lines in the United States or across borders in places like Vietnam. “Until I am free, you are not either,” Hamer once told a largely white audience. Blain’s stunning portrait of Fannie Lou Hamer forces us to ask: Who gets to “count” as an intellectual, as a bearer of knowledge and wisdom?

Daniel José Camacho: You’ve said that your intellectual encounter with Fannie Lou Hamer in your early twenties changed the course of your life. How so?

Keisha N. Blain: I first encountered Fannie Lou Hamer as an undergraduate student at Binghamton University. I was deeply inspired by her words and activism. Her ability to speak truth to power, the strength of her faith, and her unwavering commitment to civil and human rights are all traits that stood out to me then—as now. As a Black woman and first-generation college student attending a predominantly white institution, I often struggled with self-doubt. It was difficult then—and even later when I attended graduate school—to navigate spaces where so many others viewed me as an outsider. Reading about Fannie Lou Hamer resonated with me as student because I could relate in many ways.

As a Black disabled woman who had limited formal education and endured poverty during her life, Hamer did not fit the mold of what many expected a civil rights leader to look—and sound—like. Yet she never allowed others’ expectations to define her or cause her to doubt her calling. Her story lit a fire within me, and I remain encouraged—and deeply motivated—by the example she set. Learning about Hamer’s story helped me put aside my own self-doubt when I decided to embark on the journey to become a historian of the Black past. Her example has also guided my activist work. Like Hamer, I try to focus less on the seemingly insurmountable challenges ahead and instead try to come up with practical steps and solutions to make a difference in my own spheres of influence.

DJC: In researching and writing this book on Hamer, what surprised you the most about her?

KB: I was surprised by her consistency on the matter of leadership—even in the face of resistance. She had an expansive view of leadership and held fast to the belief that everyone had the potential to make a difference in their communities, regardless of their social background or education. As a result, Hamer rejected the charismatic leadership model that often dominates Black political organizations, and she always looked for ways to empower others to become leaders.

(Photo: Keisha Blain)

It’s not easy to stand by your convictions especially when you’re facing hell for holding those views. And it’s so difficult to hold fast to certain perspectives when others around you don’t take you seriously. There’s something really remarkable about how Hamer was able to push aside the criticisms and even the disdain from some of her colleagues and keep pushing ahead.

Here is where I think her faith played such an important role. She saw her calling as a divine one and so she spent little time worrying about what people had to say about her. As an intellectual historian who studies ideas over time, I was struck by how Hamer managed to hold fast to various perspectives from the start of her career to the very end. She was not the kind of political thinker who would easily buckle under the weight of pressure.

DJC: As you highlight, Hamer’s political work was explicitly motivated by her Christian faith. How did she understand and use Christianity in ways that ran counter to white supremacist expressions of Christianity?

KB: Hamer’s Christian faith shaped her commitment to human rights and her passionate rejection of white supremacy. She often drew parallels to Jesus, frequently quoting Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” This is a verse that encapsulates the mission and calling of Jesus, and Hamer was inspired by that verse because she saw her calling in a similar vein—to help those in need, to speak words of hope and empowerment, and to set people free from the chains of white supremacy.

She understood that the racial hierarchy enforced by white supremacists—in the Church and in society at large—ran counter to God’s will. She saw human rights and civil rights as God-given rights and those who stood in the way of equality and justice stood in the way of God’s plan. Ultimately, Hamer employed her Christian faith as a tool to counter white supremacy—in the tradition of so many Black activists and intellectuals, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Pauli Murray.

DJC: Hamer’s faith also motivated her to equate birth control and abortion with genocide. Another layer that informed her views on reproductive rights, as you argue, was her painful experience with a forced sterilization. Yet, Barbara Smith of the Combahee River Collective evoked Hamer’s forced sterilization while leading a mass protest in 1977 in support of abortion funding. Do you think that Hamer’s position was severely limited and in need of correction?

KB: As an intellectual historian, I try to approach my historical actors with a sense of curiosity—always seeking to understand what someone believed and why. I often find myself in disagreement with individuals of the past, but I see my task as simply to reveal the intricacies of someone’s perspectives so that others understand that person even if they wholly reject their ideas. I think Hamer’s ideas about abortion and birth control reflect her painful experiences and her own interpretation of scripture. Although the issue is still hotly contested, many Christians are against abortion and some even view birth control as contradictory to divine will. In that sense, I wouldn’t argue that Hamer needed to be corrected so much as she may have needed time to evolve on the matter.

The evolution of one’s ideas can be a complicated process and often it’s a long process guided by a myriad of factors. I think part of the beauty of this life’s journey is the ability to change—to refine one’s perspectives. Hamer struggled to view abortion rights and birth control rights as part of the larger fight for women’s empowerment, and we will never know if she would have changed her perspective. She might never have budged on the issue. But she might have also come to a different perspective. I think time could have made a difference. It’s important to remember that she died only a few years after the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

DJC: Right now, Republicans across the United States are passing or attempting to pass new voting restrictions at the state level. How does Hamer’s fight against the voting restrictions of her day relate to what we’re seeing today?

KB: Republicans are currently attempting to enshrine minority rule by limiting the pool of voters, and this is exactly what Hamer was fighting against in Mississippi during the 1960s. When she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) in 1962, she recognized the illegitimacy of elections that denied the majority of residents a chance to participate. By passing voter restrictions—and placing more power into the hands of state legislatures—Republicans today are trying to guarantee their control over government, and in the process, they are undermining the will of the people. Voter suppression tactics ultimately oppress those who are already marginalized in American society, including Black and Latinx people. These practices are much like the kinds of strategies that were employed during the Jim Crow era. Hamer fought during her lifetime to expand voting rights for all and today we have already seen those efforts undermined through developments such as the 2013 Shelby decision.

DJC: Hamer’s activism and lack of material resources as an adult, in addition to her experiences in childhood, took a toll on her health. You argue that she lived into a Christian ideal of sacrificing for others. Yet, in our own time, some activists might push back against the idea of “sacrifice” by emphasizing the importance of health and self-care and saying that we need more Black women like Fannie Lou Hamer to flourish rather than suffer. Does this tension challenge how her life can serve as a model for others?

KB: I think being an activist means that one must be willing to make sacrifices. That could mean sacrificing time and it could mean sacrificing money and other resources. When you’re deeply committed to a cause, you will ultimately make sacrifices. Hamer made many sacrifices in her lifetime to advance the cause of civil and human rights. Her sacrifices ultimately changed the nation. At the same time, I do think that we can view Hamer’s experiences as a cautionary tale—about the way activist work can take a physical and emotional toll on leaders. We should not discount the larger social and economic forces at play, but I think it’s important for leaders to be mindful of the importance of rest and self-care. The work of trying to dismantle racism and other systems of oppression is not easy—and it is impossible for one person to tackle it all. When we try to tackle it all, we ultimately undermine our own work. Taking care of one’s self is crucial and perhaps even more so as a leader.

Daniel José Camacho is a columnist for the Revealer. He has previously been a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian and an associate editor at Sojourners. Writing with a focus on religion, race, and history, his work has appeared in publications such as Religion News Service, America Magazine, ABC Religion & Ethics, TIME, and the Washington Post.

Keisha N. Blain is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society. Her latest books include the #1 New York Times Best Seller Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, edited with Ibram X. Kendi (Penguin Random House/One World). Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press) will be release October 5, 2021.