This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer

Gr 9 Up—Fannie Lou Hamer was one of 20 children, and her formal education ended in the sixth grade. Her parents were sharecroppers, and she and her husband also worked on a plantation. In the 1960s, in retaliation for her attempt to register to vote in Mississippi, she lost her job and her family was evicted. She was also jailed and severely beaten while traveling home after civil rights activities. Hamer was known for her singing voice, and she found her powerful speaking voice during the civil rights movement. She became a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, formed in protest of the all-white Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer's influential activities are put into context using current-day interviews with fellow activists and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Older photos and archival film footage are sometimes blurry, but Hamer's conviction and powerful oratory skills come clearly through. This film assumes familiarity with the Freedom Summer activities in Mississippi and related period events in general. It would make a good companion film with others featuring broader topic coverage, such as Freedom Summer (PBS, 2014) and Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot (Teaching Tolerance, 2015).