Charles McLaurin: the SNCC organizer who worked beside Hamer

How did Charles McLaurin come to Sunflower County?

He grew up in Jackson, took part in the sit-ins and direct action of the Jackson movement, and was steered toward voter registration by Medgar Evers, the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary. He joined SNCC's first voter registration efforts in the Delta, and in early August 1962, at 21, he started its project in Sunflower County. Amzie Moore introduced him, Charlie Cobb and Landy McNair at a church in Ruleville. Within days McLaurin drove three older women to the Indianola courthouse; the youngest was 65, the SNCC Digital Gateway says.

What happened in 1962?

The project's mass meetings brought out Fannie Lou Hamer, who was evicted after her registration attempt on August 31, 1962, and in September night riders fired into Black homes in Ruleville. The Gateway says support for the project dried up after the shootings, and McLaurin had to rebuild it.

How did he work with Hamer?

He became one of her most trusted partners, managed her 1964 campaign for Congress in the Second District and kept organizing with her on political and economic projects into the 1970s. The Gateway credits him with helping her start the Freedom Farm Cooperative. His writings about organizing are published by the Civil Rights Movement Archive.

What did he do later?

He settled in Indianola with his family and worked as the city's assistant public works director until he retired. He has spoken often about Hamer and the Sunflower County movement, and at the October 2012 statue dedication in Ruleville he told the Associated Press he had long wanted a statue of her in the Delta. As a living person, he is profiled here only through his public work.