How Fannie Lou Hamer is commemorated

What happens on her birthday?

Around October 6 each year, community members in Ruleville have gathered at the memorial garden, and in Jackson the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and Museum of Mississippi History have marked the day. In 2021 the museums offered free admission and guided talks on her birthday, the Mississippi Free Press reported. In 2024 WDAM announced a celebration of her 107th birthday at the Gravesite Pavilion in Ruleville on October 5. In 2022 the Oktibbeha County NAACP held a Fannie Lou Hamer program in Starkville, documented in an online exhibit by Mississippi State University Libraries.

How was the 2017 centennial marked?

The hundredth anniversary of her birth, in October 2017, brought events in Ruleville, Jackson and elsewhere, and news coverage across Mississippi. Mississippi Today marked it with a feature on her legacy on October 4, 2017. Two months later, on December 9, 2017, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opened in Jackson with her story in its galleries.

Which dedications became commemorations?

Several markers and monuments were dedicated at public ceremonies that drew movement veterans and family members.

• October 5, 2012: the bronze statue in Ruleville; see the statue.
• 2022: a Mississippi Freedom Trail marker at the site of the former Winona jail, reported by Mississippi Today in June 2022.
• June 8, 2024: a second Winona marker, at the site of Staley's Cafe.
• August 20, 2024: a Freedom Trail marker on the Atlantic City boardwalk, the trail's first outside Mississippi, two days before the 60th anniversary of her testimony.

How did the 2024 convention remember her?

Sixty years after Atlantic City, speakers at the August 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago invoked her repeatedly. WDAM reported that Representative Maxine Waters said on opening night that she had been 22 when Hamer made her presence known.

How can I organize my own commemoration?

Start with a reading of her testimony, a song she led and a discussion of voting in your own community. Our guide for organizers explains how to check quotations and credit images, and the calendar lists dates to build around. This address, commemoration.html, was used by an earlier site on this domain for its own events, which are unrelated to us.