'Hamer's unshakable belief in the power of young leaders to change society for the better is a model for our current moment.' KeishaBlain on civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer commitment to mentoring and nurturing young leaders ⤵️
. She carefully explained that reporters should be far more interested in condemning the state of affairs in the nation — including the rampant acts of racist violence — than in critiquing those attempting to bring about necessary changes. “The shame is not on the people, but on the country,” she explained. She then went on to criticize the media for overlooking the violence of the Ku Klux Klan while promoting false equivalences to the Black Panther Party’s stance on armed self-defense.
While Hamer fully supported the use of nonviolent resistance as a strategy to topple Jim Crow, she recognized younger activists’ motivations for demanding a more militant response to white supremacy. And she carefully weighed the pros and cons of each approach and tried to get others around her to do the same. In September 1971, after losing her bid for the Mississippi Senate, Hamerin her hometown of Ruleville, where she evoked Malcolm X’s 1964 “ballot or the bullet” speech.
Six days after Hamer passed away on March 14, 1977, thousands gathered in Ruleville to remember her remarkable life and legacy. Among those present were many of the younger activists who Hamer had mentored and supported, including Andrew Young, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and former SNCC chairmen John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael, and H. Rap Brown. “No one in America has not been influenced or inspired by Mrs. Hamer,” Young.
The moving tributes at Hamer’s funeral were a testament to the love and support she extended to all people — and especially to younger activists in the movement. Hamer refrained from authoritarian approaches and treated young people with the same respect she afforded older, more experienced leaders. She recognized that young people held within their hands great potential to lead the nation forward.