ChristianNews
It’s been reported that the story of civil rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer is set to be scripted by Gregory Allen Howard and Chris Columbus. Howard, who studied Hamer’s accomplishments as a college student, has long been obsessed with bringing her story to the screen.
Hamer grew up in a family of 20 kids and picked cotton for most of her life. After going to a doctor to have a tumor removed, she discovered she was given a hysterectomy at age 47 by a white doctor, without her consent, because of a movement by the state to sterilize women to reduce the number of poor blacks in Mississippi. Hamer became a Civil Rights activist, surviving assassination attempts and a near-fatal beating to get her moment at the Democratic National Convention, where she challenged President Johnson in 1968 with her legendary, “Is This America?” speech. While LBJ hastily called a ruse press conference in the hope of diverting attention away from her speech, Hamer’s powerful words were widely broadcast and reverberated around the world.
Some of Fannie Lou Hamer famous quotes,
“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!”
“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free”
“If the white man gives you anything, just remember when he get’s ready, he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.”
Watch her powerful testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention about the Land of the Thief, Home of the Slave!
Hamer died in 1977.
