Centers named for Fannie Lou Hamer

What is the center in Ruleville?

In 2005 Jean Walker Rawlings, who attended the Ruleville Freedom School as a teenager in 1964, founded a Fannie Lou Hamer cultural center in Ruleville as a grassroots outreach center offering mentoring and enrichment programs for young people. The Civil Rights Movement Archive, which publishes profiles written by and about movement veterans, records her Freedom Summer participation from 1964 to 1966 and her founding of the center. The center has been known by more than one name in public listings.

Small community centers like this one depend on local volunteers and change over time. If you plan to visit, confirm locally that it is open; we are not connected to it.

What is the Berkeley center?

The Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center at the University of California, Berkeley, opened in February 2017 as a space for Black students on campus. Berkeley News reported that students had campaigned for it. It offers advising, programs and study space and is part of the university's student services.

Are there other centers?

Yes. Jackson State University hosts the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute @ COFO, described on our institute page, and schools and colleges across the country have rooms, programs and student groups in her name. In Ruleville, the Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation is building a headquarters; see the foundation page.

Why is this page called cultural_center.html?

An earlier site on this domain used this address for a page about a center in Ruleville. We have no connection to that site or to the center, and we describe centers here only from public sources.