Exhibits and online collections about Fannie Lou Hamer

Which online collection should I start with?

Start with the SNCC Digital Gateway, which has a profile of Hamer and linked pages on the people, places and events around her. It was built by veterans of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee working with Duke University and historians, and it includes scanned documents, photographs and recorded interviews. Many of the facts on this site come from it.

Where can I hear people who knew Hamer?

The Library of Congress Civil Rights History Project, created with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, has video interviews with movement veterans, including people who organized with Hamer in Mississippi. Search the collection for Sunflower County, Ruleville or the names on our people pages.

What do Mississippi archives offer?

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) holds photographs, broadsides and records from the movement, and its Freedom Summer 60 site marked the project's sixtieth anniversary in 2024. The Freedom Summer recruiting broadside shown on this page comes from MDAH's collections, shared through Wikimedia Commons with no known copyright restrictions. MDAH also holds the records of the State Sovereignty Commission, the state agency that spied on civil rights workers, and those records include files on Hamer.

University libraries are another source. Mississippi State University Libraries publishes an online exhibit, "A Celebration of Fannie Lou Hamer," with archival documents about her and photographs from a 2022 community event in Starkville. The University of Southern Mississippi holds the papers of Victoria Gray Adams.

Are there traveling or museum exhibits?

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson has permanent galleries on the movement, and other museums mount temporary exhibits around anniversaries. Because those change, check the institutions directly. Our museums page lists places to visit in person.

Why is this page at exhibits.html?

An earlier site on this domain used this address for displays it organized. Those are unrelated to us, and we have no information about them. We kept the address and used it for collections anyone can visit online.