This year marks the 100th birthday of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer and on Oct. 6, Hamer will be honored in her hometown of Ruleville.
The celebration is slated to kickoff at 10 a.m., in the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden on Byron Street and shift to the Hamer Multi-Purpose Center beginning at 1 p.m.
The activities in the garden will feature a panel discussion, which will reflect on the life and legacy of Hamer, an open flow segment for audience participation and a wreath placement on her and her husband’s gravesite.
The 1 p.m. portion will consist of a brown-bag lunch, centennial-cake cutting, showing of a PBS documentary on Hamer and a special performance by the Young Steppers of Indianola.
Hamer was a sharecropper who was forced to leave her home because she persisted in registering to vote in an era when that was not a popular decision for African-Americans.
Later she ran for U.S. Congress and the Mississippi State Senate, then courageously led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation to the National Democratic Convention and challenged the seating of the all-white regular Democratic Party.
Hamer transitioned this life in 1977. “But her legacy spans an important period in American history that must never be forgotten,” stated in a press release from Charles McLaurin, former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
