Fannie Lou Hamer

 

I am Fannie Lou Hamer. Daughter of sharecropper parents and the youngest of 20 children. Yes 20 children. My parents needed to get as much help to work on the feilds. I was always on the fields so I never received any sort of education. When I finaly learned about my rights that summer 1962, I was outraged that I was  never told about these rights I had. In a Freedom School that summer I became literate and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). From there on I vowed to fight for my rights. I was a part of every march from then on and when we were protesting, I made sure to be the loudest one. I even helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 because my state, Mississipi, only had white representatives. I did not let anthing stop me from fighting fr my rights. I was beaten and arrested so many times but I never let that stop me. I kept fighting until I could no longer fight off the deadly disease of cancer. Cancer stopped me on March 14, 1977. I was born in Mississipi and I died in Mississipi fighting for my rights. 



Reconstruction Era

      During Reconstruction, blacks became were no longer slaves, but freedman. They gained their freedom after the North won the Civil War. After the Civil War, the seceded Southern states were accepted back into the US little by little. Blacks were not veiwed as equal and were pretty much still slaves with the laws placed upon them. Their freedom was very restricted. One of the greatest ways there freedom was restricted can be seen through the Misissipi Black Codes. These laws granted the freedman certain rights but violated a lot more of them. If the freedman were actually free, the Amendments would apply to them too but some of their ammendments were not respected. Freedman were not allowed to own any type of firearm which violated their right to bear arms. Freedman were also not allowed to intermarry which violated their right to happines. As one can see, equality was not created during Reconstruction. Even today there is no complete equality because Blacks and Latinos alike are still discriminate today. Not as bad as before but it is still here in our era. Equality still has to be worked on for it to be full equality for all.