THE FANNIE LOU HAMER INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
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About Fannie Lou Hamer​
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was a brilliant thinker and political organizer who transformed both her beloved Mississippi community and the United States. Born the last of 20 children to Mississippi sharecroppers, Hamer was thrown off the plantation for attempting to vote. A SNCC leader and cofounder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, she is most famous for delivering a dramatic speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, but also engaged in revolutionary mutual aid organizing via the Freedom Farm Cooperative and pioneered an intersectional approach to organizing long before the word had been invented.
*To learn more about Hamer’s life and legacy, see Keisha N. Blain’s Until I am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press, 2021).
Mission & Goals
The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute for Human Rights embraces a dual mission: 1. To provide a space for scholars, activists, artists, and policy makers to honor and continue the work of human rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. 2. To support and amplify research and public policy that seeks to expand human rights in the United States and across the globe.
Grounded in Hamer’s philosophy that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” the Institute seeks to accomplish the following:
–Address human rights on a domestic and international level
–Generate bold and creative solutions to address some of the most pressing issues of the day
–Provide a space in which to devise practical strategies for expanding disability justice, economic justice, and voting rights in the United States and globally
– Support community-based human rights activism
–Offer resources to grassroots leaders who embrace an intersectional approach to their work to expand human rights
Leadership
Dr. Keisha N. Blain | Executive Director
Keisha N. Blain, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and Class of 2022 Carnegie Fellow, is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States. She completed a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 2014 and is currently Professor of History and Africana Studies at Brown University. Dr. Blain is the author of many highly acclaimed publications, including Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America. Her edited volume with Ibram X. Kendi – Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 – debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers' list. Her most recent collection, Wake Up America: Black Women on the Future of Democracy, was published by W.W. Norton in 2024. An anthology of original essays edited by Dr. Blain, Wake Up America features contributors from some of the nation’s leading progressive Black women such as US Senator Laphonza Butler, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza.
Annual Symposium
The Institute hosts an annual symposium each fall to commemorate Hamer’s birthday: October 6. This gathering provides a rare opportunity for thought leaders across disciplines (social justice advocates, philanthropists, scholars, policy makers, DEI executives, artists, and others) to celebrate and promote Hamer’s legacy; and also participate in critical discussions on human rights in both domestic and international contexts. The first symposium was held in 2022 at the Ford Foundation in NYC. The second was held in Washington, DC in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center.