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MovementSeptember 1964

Africa and the 1964 SNCC trip to Guinea

Why a SNCC delegation including Fannie Lou Hamer traveled to newly independent Guinea in September 1964, who went, what they saw and what it changed.

By the FLH Info Editorial Team · Updated · 2 min read

In short

In September 1964, weeks after the Atlantic City convention, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled with ten other SNCC members to Conakry, Guinea, at the invitation of President Sékou Touré. Harry Belafonte helped arrange the trip. The group spent about three weeks touring factories, schools and cultural events. It was Hamer's first trip abroad, and the trip pushed SNCC to connect the Southern freedom movement with African independence movements.

When
September 1964, about three weeks
Where
Conakry, Guinea
Host
President Sékou Touré
Arranged with
Harry Belafonte
Delegation
11 SNCC members
Members
Hamer, James Forman, John Lewis, Bob Moses, Dona Richards Moses, Julian Bond, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, Donald Harris, Bill Hansen, Prathia Hall, Matthew Jones
Mule-drawn wagon piled with cotton on a sandy track through a cotton field, with workers walking alongside, 1939
A wagon load of cotton leaving the field at Mileston Plantation in the Mississippi Delta, October 1939. Farm Security Administration photograph. Photo: Marion Post Wolcott, Public domain, via Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.

How did the trip come about?

By September 1964 many SNCC organizers were worn out by the violence of Freedom Summer and disappointed by the result in Atlantic City, and Harry Belafonte, a longtime supporter, offered to send a delegation abroad. Guinea's president, Sékou Touré, had invited the group. Guinea had voted for independence from France in 1958, and Touré was a hero to many young Black Americans who followed African liberation movements.

The SNCC Digital Gateway lists eleven travelers: James Forman, John Lewis, Bob Moses, Dona Richards Moses, Julian Bond, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, Donald Harris, Bill Hansen, Prathia Hall, Matthew Jones and Fannie Lou Hamer.

What did the delegation do in Guinea?

For about three weeks the group toured Conakry and the country as guests of the government. They attended the opening of a new sports stadium, visited a printing plant named for the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, toured a match factory, and went to cultural performances and receptions in the evenings. James Forman later said they were watching a new society being built.

What did it mean to Hamer?

For a woman who had never been far from the Delta before 1964, seeing a nation governed by Black Africans was a powerful experience, and she spoke about it in later speeches. She described seeing Black people in charge of offices, banks and airplanes, things impossible in Mississippi at the time. Historians who study SNCC's women, such as the authors of the 2019 American Historical Association paper listed below, have looked closely at what the trip meant to Hamer, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson and Prathia Hall.

What did it change for SNCC?

The trip strengthened SNCC's interest in linking the American freedom movement to anti-colonial movements in Africa. John Lewis and Donald Harris argued afterward that the movement needed lasting ties with African liberation movements. That outlook shaped SNCC's later positions, including its 1966 statement against the Vietnam War. Our page on the word Uhuru explains how the language of African independence entered the American movement.

Questions readers ask

Why did SNCC go to Guinea?

Harry Belafonte offered to send a group of exhausted organizers abroad after Freedom Summer and Atlantic City. Guinea, independent from France since 1958, had invited them, and its president, Sékou Touré, was admired by many young activists.

Was this Fannie Lou Hamer's first trip outside the United States?

Accounts of her life describe it as her first journey abroad. She spoke afterward about how moving it was to see Black people running their own government and businesses.

What did the trip change?

The SNCC Digital Gateway says it exposed SNCC to revolutionary thought and strengthened its resolve to link the fight against racism at home with anti-colonial struggles abroad.

Sources

  1. SNCC delegation travels to AfricaSNCC Digital Gateway
  2. Fannie Lou HamerSNCC Digital Gateway
  3. "What That Meant to Me": SNCC Women, the 1964 Guinea Trip, and Black Internationalism (conference paper)American Historical Association annual meeting, 2019
  4. Fannie Lou HamerWikipedia (cross-check)

We checked every date and name on this page against the sources above. If you find an error, write to contact@fannielouhamer.info.

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