The Fannie Lou Hamer Centennial and Black Women's Organizing Traditions

Out of the shadows of the John F. Kennedy centennial, join the Fannie Lou Hammer centennial (1917-2017). First, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer set the pace for the Mississippi Freedom Movement in the 1960s, knocking down Jim Crow barriers to human rights, protesting the Vietnam War, and fighting American poverty. Second, in South Carolina, Septima Clark pioneered the Grassroots organizing tradition with the Citizenship Schools. Third, in Newark, New Jersey and the Jim Crow North, the Black Women’s United Front established African Free Schools and insisted on women’s rights of self-defense against white terror, including rape.