Museums where you can learn about Fannie Lou Hamer

What is the best museum for Hamer's story?

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, run by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), has the most complete telling of the Mississippi movement, including Hamer's life. It opened on December 9, 2017, together with the Museum of Mississippi History, in a shared building downtown known as the Two Mississippi Museums. Its galleries follow the movement from the 1940s through the 1970s, with sections on the Freedom Vote, Freedom Summer and the Freedom Democratic Party.

In October 2025 Hamer's family donated her Presidential Medal of Freedom to MDAH, which said it would be displayed at the museums. In some years the museums have marked her October 6 birthday with free admission and guided talks.

What can I see in the Delta?

Three smaller sites within an hour of Ruleville fill in the world Hamer lived in.

The Amzie Moore House at 612 South Chrisman Avenue in Cleveland, built in 1941, was the home of the civil rights leader who brought SNCC to the Delta, and it has been turned into a museum about his life. A Mississippi Freedom Trail marker stands nearby. See our page on the house.

The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola, the Sunflower County seat where Hamer tried to register, tells the story of the Delta's music, land and people.

The Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, across from the courthouse where Till's killers were acquitted in 1955, covers the murder that, in Amzie Moore's words, set Mississippi moving.

What is there in Jackson besides the main museum?

The COFO Civil Rights Education Center and the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home are both in Jackson. The COFO center, run by Jackson State University's Margaret Walker Center, occupies the area of the old Council of Federated Organizations headquarters on John R. Lynch Street and reopened as a museum and education center in 2011. Its website noted in fall 2026 that it was closed for street construction, so call before visiting. The Evers home, where Medgar Evers was shot in 1963, is a national monument managed by the National Park Service.

What about museums outside Mississippi?

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, opened in 2016, covers the movement nationally, and President Obama named Hamer in his remarks at its dedication. Our exhibits page lists online collections and exhibitions you can explore from anywhere.

Why is this page called museum.html?

An earlier site on this domain used the address for a museum project. That project has no connection to us. We kept the address so links still work.