The following chronology of Fannie Lou Hamer’s activist career is mostly drawn from Maegan Parker Brooks’s A Voice That Could Stir an Army.
October 6, 1917: Fannie Lou Townsend is born in Tomnolan, Mississippi. She is one of the twenty children of her parents, James Lee and Lou Ella Townsend.
1919: The Townsends find work on the E. W. Brandon plantation, near Ruleville, Mississippi. As a child, Fannie Lou Hamer contracts polio but recovers.
1944: Fannie Lou Townsend marries Perry “Pap” Hamer, who is employed on the Marlow plantation near to the Brandon’s. The Hamers will labor for many years on the Marlow plantation. Fannie Lou Hamer is a literate and highly capable employee, and advances to a management job on the plantation.
1961: Hamer is involuntarily sterilized while undergoing a medical procedure. She and her husband adopt and raise two children in the coming years.
August 27, 1962: Encouraged by her friend Mary Tucker, Hamer attends a mass meeting at William Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Ruleville, designed to encourage black people to register to vote. Among those in attendance and / or speaking are Charles McLaurin, Bob Moses, Amzie Moore, James Forman, and James Bevel. Bevel’s sermon is “Discerning the Signs of the Time.”
August 31, 1962: Impressed by what she heard at the mass meeting on August 27, Hamer and seventeen others ride together on an old school bus to Indianola, Mississippi, aiming to register to vote. Harassed, subjected to literacy testing, threatened with injury, and unable to register, the group is nevertheless encouraged by Hamer’s singing and leadership.
Fall, 1962: Fired from her job for trying to register, Hamer takes on the role of activist. Undeterred by intimidation (night riders fire shots at Mary Tucker’s house, where Hamer is suspected of living now that she’s been thrown off the Marlow plantation, and they wound two young women in the neighborhood), she speaks to local individual citizens and groups about voting.
She also speaks at Tougaloo College and in Nashville about her experiences, and learns about legal and political matters. The following spring, she attends a workshop on voter registration at Sea Island Center on Jones Island in South Carolina.
June 9, 1963: Returning from South Carolina, Fannie Lou Hamer and other activists are arrested on pretexts in Winona, Mississippi, and then savagely tortured while in jail. When she is released four days later, she learns that Medgar Evers has been murdered in Jackson just after midnight on June 12.
Fall, 1963: Hamer continues her activist efforts. She has finally been registered to vote. In a mock election meant to demonstrate the political passion of African Americans, November 2-4, 80,000+ black voters turn out.
Spring, 1964: As Freedom Summer begins to unfold, Hamer decides to run for congress against the incumbent. Her opponent wins easily on June 2 because few blacks are allowed to vote in the 2nd District of Mississippi, but her efforts encourage the voting rights effort and nurture the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
June 21, 1964: Three civil rights workers are murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Nevertheless, SNCC workers continue their voter registration efforts.
July 2, 1964: The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 is enacted in Washington after a long debate, but it omits voting rights provisions.
August 22, 1964: On behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Hamer offers gripping testimony to the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. The MFDP is offered two seats in the Mississippi delegation, but they refuse the compromise: “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats,” says Hamer.
September 1964: Hamer offers her speech “We’re on Our Way!” at a mass meeting in Indianola, Mississippi.
From September 11 to October 4, Hamer is part of a delegation to visit Guinea that includes Harry Belafonte, John Lewis, Bob Moses, James Forman, Prathia Hall, and Julian Bond, among others.
December 20, 1964: On the program with Malcolm X at a rally in Harlem, Hamer speaks on “I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.”
June 1966: Hamer participates in the Meredith March.
May 8, 1969: Hamer speaks in Lexington, Mississippi in support of MFDP candidates for office.
1969: Hamer is one of the organizers of Freedom Farm, a short-lived coop that is part of her campaign against rural poverty.
1971: Hamer runs unsuccessfully for the Mississippi State Senate. During her campaign she addresses feminism in several of her campaign speeches.
March 14, 1977: After several years of declining health, Hamer dies of complications from breast cancer.
March 20, 1977: At Hamer’s funeral at William Chapel in Ruleville, Andrew Young, Stokeley Carmichael, and Hodding Carter are among those who speak. She rests next to her husband at the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden in Ruleville.