Fannie Lou Hamer: America's Freedom Fighting Woman by Maegan Parker Brooks

Nobody's free until everybody's free. ~ Fannie Lou Hamer

I first heard of Fannie Lou Hamer when I was struggling to find a focus for a quilt celebrating women's contributions to freedom. I contacted a professor of African American Studies at our son's school who referred me to Freedom's DaughtersThe Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970  by Lynn Olson. It was just the inspiration I needed.

Fannie Lou Hamer, I Will Life My Voice Like a Trumpet by Nancy A. Bekofske

After completing my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet, which appeared in two national juried quilt shows, I continued reading biographies of leaders in the abolitionist movement and Civil Rights, which brings me to Brook's new biography of Hamer, subtitled America's Freedom Fighting Woman.

At the heart of Hamer's story is the fight to end voter discrimination, a battle that is ongoing to this very day. People in power are afraid of the power of the people and use every method possible to limit their voice.

For Hamer, seeking to vote in Mississippi in the 1960s, that fight included huge sacrifices. Arrested, beaten, and raped, the attack permanently destroyed her health.

Hamer could not be stopped. She knew first hand the suffering of the people. Her own daughter was a victim of malnutrition and the lack of affordable and available health care. Hamer saw her beloved community starving when the cotton jobs disappeared. White Supremacists literally blocked governmental assistance. Without a political voice, the poor--white and black--were powerless victims.

quotation from Fannie Lou Hamer on I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet by Nancy A. Bekofske

Hamer's crusade was born in her Christian faith and she raised her voice in hymns and speeches across the country, working with all the important leaders from Malcolm X and Stokley Carmichael to Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.

Hamer was broadly a human rights activist. As a Black Feminist, she appeared with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Hamer was pro-life, distraught over a forced hysterectomy. She was an anti-war voice.

Hamer didn't only talk and sing, she ran for political office and created the Freedom Farm Collective to provide food to thousands in her starving county.

Give us food and it will be gone tomorrow. Give us land and the tools to work it and we'll feed ourselves forever.~ Fannie Lou Hamer

Hamer's life demonstrates the power of 'ordinary people.' As a nation, we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African American leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, especially the martyrs who gave their lives. It is important that we remember women like Hamer who rose up from the most powerless class in America and relentlessly stood up to power.

Brooks has given us a heroine whose example is much needed in these troubling times.

Fannie Lou Hamer on I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet by Nancy A. Bekofske

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Fannie Lou Hamer: America's Freedom Fighting Woman
by Maegan Parker Brooks
Rowman & Littlefield
Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 9781538115947
PRICE: $34.00 (USD)

With my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet at AQS Grand Rapid 2013

Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe

Mighty Justice begins with a powerful chapter of Dovey remembering her grandmother's nightly ritual of soothing her gnarled and twisted feet after a day of nonstop work. Hearing the story of how her feet were broken, and the courage she showed standing up to power, is unforgettable.

Each chapter is vividly rendered in Dovey's voice, telling her story of accomplishing what most would have deemed impossible. The remarkable people who inspired and mentored Dovey over her life are lovingly portrayed, from her grandmother to Mary McLeod Bethune, her teacher Mary Mae Neptune who personally sacrificed to keep Dovey in college, Julius Winfield Robertson who became her law partner, her pastors, her family and those she adopted as family.

Out of our indebtedness I believe, our real selves are born. For it is when we grasp what we owe, how beholden we truly are, that we remain children no longer. ~Dovey Johnson Roundtree, Mighty Justice

But Dovey herself also was a mentor, ministering to her people. She was a defender of the weak and a rectifier of injustice. She came to recognize that children were the victims of racism and violence and how children mirrored the violence in their lives through their actions. She came to believe that in ministering to children and changing their lives, "redemption is truly possible."

Determined to change the world, Dovey earned a law degree, was in the first wave of African American women in the Women's Army Auxillary Corps  championed by her grandmother's friend Mary McLeod Bethune, argued at the bar for an end to segregation on the railways, and was one of the first women to be ordained in the African Methodist Church. Each chapter of her life is riveting and thrilling with a story arc all its own. The law cases were well presented in their historical context with moving insight into Dovey's personal dedication and hopes.

And the ending of the book, Benediction, brings the story full circle, back to the inspiring grandmother whose example first inspired Dovey.

Katie McCabe words have recreated Roundtree's voice in a narrative that is thrilling and moving.

I received an ARC from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Mighty Justice
by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe
Algonquin Books
Publication: November 5, 2019
$16.94 paperback
ISBN: 9781616209551

Winner of the 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize

"The book moved me at times to tears. Dovey Roundtree's nobility, the courage and effectiveness of her work, are enough to restore anyone's hope for the human race. The book, though it describes an era that is past, is above all a study of something that doesn't change much: human character and its possibilities." -- Time Magazine essayist Lance Morrow

Mighty Justice recalls all the major stories in the history of Civil Rights. Some of the people who inspired Dovey:

Mary McLeod Bethune appears on my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet

See the Mary McLeon Bethume quilt from HERstory Quilts here

Pauli Murray also is on my quilt. Read my review of Murray's autobiography Song in a Weary Throat here

Other books I have reviewed that you may want to consider:

Lighting the Fires of Freedom by Janet Dewart Bell
My Life My Love My Legacy by Coretta Scott King
Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial  Justice in the Nation's Capital by Joan Quigly

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba by Carol V. R. George