Received posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom
In one of his last official acts, President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 recipients, including a posthumous award to civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer who died in 1977.
The Delta native is reportedly the eleventh Mississippian to receive the honor since 1964.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.
The awards were presented Saturday, Jan. 4, at The White House. Other recipients include Former U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, actor Denzel Washington and Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
Doris Hamer Richardson accepted the award on behalf of Hamer’s family and her cousin, Monica Land, who was unable to attend the ceremony. Land is the producer of the award-winning film, “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” that aired on PBS and WORLD Channel in February 2022. Land’s maternal grandfather, Richardson’s father and Hamer’s husband, Pap, were brothers.
“I have so many wonderful memories of Aunt Fannie Lou,” said Richardson. “It’s an amazing feeling to be here in D.C. to honor her. And I’m so grateful that she is being recognized with this award and that history continues to be made in her name.”
“It’s overwhelming to see Aunt Fannie Lou recognized for her sacrifices on behalf of others to this magnitude,” said Land, who is also Project Director of the Sunflower County Film Academy, a young filmmakers’ workshop for high school students in the Delta. “And this is why our film about her life is so important. It allows a new and younger generation to get to know her and appreciate the freedoms they have because of her.”
A vocal proponent of voting and equal rights for everyone, Fannie Lou Hamer is remembered as a fiery and eloquent speaker who often said she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Numerous political stalwarts referenced Hamer’s courageous stance during the Democratic National Convention in August including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif and Mississippi resident and NAACP President and CEO, Derrick Johnson.
Born October 6, 1917, Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper with a sixth-grade education, worked tirelessly to help thousands of Blacks in her home state to register and vote. Because of those efforts, Hamer and several others were arrested in Winona, MS on June 9, 1963, while returning home from a voter registration workshop in South Carolina. Hamer and three others, including 15-year-old June Johnson, were viciously beaten at the hands of local law enforcement. The activists were released four days later on June 12. In December 1963, all five white defendants named in the federal complaint were acquitted by an all-white male jury.
Hamer was also a humanitarian providing clothing, housing and jobs for the poorest residents of the Mississippi Delta – both Black and white. She brought the first Head Start program to the state and she launched a Freedom Farm and Pig Bank so impoverished residents could have both fresh vegetables and meat in their diet. Because of her love for children, and left sterilized by a white doctor who gave her a hysterectomy without her knowledge or consent during a routine operation, Hamer and her husband also adopted four infant girls whose families were unable to care for them. Their last surviving child, Jacqueline, died in 2023.
Hamer died on March 14, 1977, of breast cancer, hypertension and the aftereffects of the jailhouse beating. She was 59.