America ReFramed

Fannie Lou Hamer's America

Fannie Lou Hamer's America is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

Fannie Lou Hamer's America

58m 41s

Fannie Lou Hamer's America is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

Previews + Extras

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Preview: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Preview

    S10 E1 - 30s

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Trailer: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Trailer

    S10 E1 - 2m 23s

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Beyond the Lens: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Beyond the Lens

    S10 E1 - 23m 18s

    For the family of Fannie Lou Hamer, she was a woman of power and presence as a civil and human rights activist. But to Jacqueline Hamer Flakes, Monica Land, and Jimmy Lee Lacey, she was also so much more - a mother, a wife, and a friend who was loving and giving. The in-depth interview provides an intimacy to Mrs. Hamer's life, work and legacy that can only be told by those who knew her best.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | A Childhood in Mississippi: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | A Childhood in Mississippi

    S10 E1 - 3m 22s

    In childhood, Fannie Lou Hamer, her parents and her nineteen siblings lived with hunger. Like many young Black children, she began picking pounds and pounds of cotton in the fields, dropping out of school at the age of twelve. It was a lesson about poverty and race that was not lost on her.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | The Beginnings of an Activist: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | The Beginnings of an Activist

    S10 E1 - 2m 46s

    In August of 1962, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee traveled to Ruleville, Mississippi to talk to the residents about voting. In the audience was Fannie Lou Hamer. From that day forward, Mrs. Hamer became invested in voting rights for the Black people of Mississippi.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Registering to Vote: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Registering to Vote

    S10 E1 - 1m 34s

    For Fannie Lou Hamer, registering to vote in Mississippi meant being a first-class citizen in the U.S. But in doing so, her life and livelihood were threatened. Intimidation and violence were not new to Mrs. Hamer, and they would continue to follow her as an activist and as a Black woman.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | The Brutality in Winona, MS: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | The Brutality in Winona, MS

    S10 E1 - 3m

    Fannie Lou Hamer describes the ill-fated day she, Annell Ponder and Euvester Simpson were arrested in Winona, Mississippi. The interrogation of Mrs. Hamer would forever change her work and life as the brutal police beating left her physically scarred, affecting her health in later years.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | A Separate But More Equal Party: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | A Separate But More Equal Party

    S10 E1 - 1m 29s

    Why did Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Bob Moses and others organize a separate political party in Mississippi? For the inclusion of Black residents in state politics which was powered by white supremacy. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party would soon ruffle feathers all the way to Washington, D.C.

  • Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Is This America?: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Fannie Lou Hamer's America | Is This America?

    S10 E1 - 2m

    Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. introduce Fannie Lou Hamer at the 1964 Democratic National Party. As a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, she testifies about her terrifying experiences with voter registration as a Black woman and as a voting rights activist.

Similar Shows

WETA Passport

Stream tens of thousands of hours of your PBS and local favorites with WETA Passport whenever and wherever you want. Catch up on a single episode or binge-watch full seasons before they air on TV.