Fannie Lou Hamer’s Daughter, Jacqueline “Cookie” Hamer Flakes Dies At 56
MARCH 30, 2023 - RULEVILLE, MS - Funeral services are set for Jacqueline Hamer Flakes, the last living child of civil and voting rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer. Flakes, 56, died Monday, March 27 at her home in Ruleville, MS.
Flakes, who in recent years had been traveling and speaking about her mother’s legacy, had been battling breast cancer and had just returned from an engagement at a museum in Seattle, Washington. Flakes was taken to North Sunflower Medical Center in her hometown of Ruleville, on March 24 after complaining of weakness.
Jacqueline Hamer Flakes (Photo by chromatic black)
“She spent a few days with us in Winona, and she was having issues holding things in her hand,” said friend Vickie Roberts-Ratliff. “So, we started out early Friday morning driving her back to Ruleville and we took her straight to the hospital.”
Ruby McWilliams, who helped raise Flakes and her older sister, Lenora, after Hamer’s death, met them at the hospital.
“She would try to hold things and her hands would just slip down,” she said. “She stayed there a few days and they decided to send her home on hospice. The doctor said she could last two days, or it could be two hours. So, friends and family were in and out to see her and I just didn’t realize it was going to be the last time I saw my child.”
Nicknamed “Cookie” by Hamer and her husband, Pap, Flakes was born on September 22, 1966. She and Lenora, known as “Nook”, were adopted by the couple when their mother, Dorothy Jean, died six months after Flakes was born.
With Hamer unable to have children, they took in two infant girls – relatives – when their families could no longer support them. They adopted Dorothy Jean, Hamer’s niece, when she was eight months old. And 10 years later, Virgie Ree, who at 6-months had already been physically abused and neglected.
In 1965, Hamer was traveling extensively as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help poor Blacks to register to vote in the deep south. When she returned home from one of those trips, she found Dorothy Jean, now 21, pregnant with her first child. Lenora was born in October 1965 and Jacqueline 11 months later.
Fannie Lou Hamer holding baby Lenora as Virgie Ree looks out the window. Dorothy Jean is leaning behind Pap sitting on the bed.
After Dorothy Jean died of a cerebral hemorrhage in May 1967, her husband, Sylvester Hall, enlisted in the military. Rather than see Dorothy’s girls go to separate homes, the Hamers took them in and legally adopted them in May 1969.
When Hamer died of hypertension and breast cancer on March 14, 1977, her husband Pap continued to raise the girls with the help of female relatives and neighbors.
“I had those girls since they were knee high to a duck,” McWilliams said. “Before Cousin Fannie passed, they were over here all the time. She would send them over here and I would do their hair. And after she was gone, they just locked in with my family and they were like my own children. They were mine.”
Flakes attended Ruleville High School and later Mississippi Delta Community College (MDCC) where she studied Clinical Office Management. During that time, she worked as a relief dispatcher for the Ruleville Police Department and later the Sunflower County Sheriff’s Department. She moved to Michigan in 1997 where she also worked as a dispatcher. She returned to Ruleville in 2009 and in 2015 went to work at city hall as the water clerk, replacing her sister, Lenora who retired after 26 years. Lenora died in July 2019.
When Virgie Ree died in 2017, Flakes stepped in as the spokesperson for her mother appearing at several events a year. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018, Flakes underwent invasive treatments, but continued to travel as her health allowed.
“She had her treatments in Atlanta,” McWilliams said. “And we’d be out there about a week. But she never stopped. She would encourage other cancer patients. And when they said she was cancer free, which means it was in remission, she got to ring the bell, and everybody cheered for her. But later she started having some signs that it was back. But she handled everything so well through her entire ordeal. And there was just so much that she wanted to get done considering what her mom had done being a great warrior for people. Cookie hit the ground running.”
In 2021, Flakes was interviewed for the documentary film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, produced by her cousin and Hamer’s niece, Monica Land. Flakes spoke candidly about Hamer’s final years in the Beyond The Lens segment of the film.
“I met Cookie while working on the Fannie Lou Hamer special for PBS,” said Stephanie Frederic, producer of Beyond The Lens. “Like her mother, Cookie had a beautiful voice. In our TV show, she blew us away singing, ‘This Little Light Of Mine, I’m Gonna’ Let It Shine.’ She’s singing with her mother now. I know the angels in heaven are rejoicing hearing the glorious duet.”
In 2022, Flakes accomplished her long-time goal of writing a book about her mother entitled, Mama Fannie, published by Concierge Publishing Services.
In June, she spoke in Winona, MS where a historical marker was unveiled at the jail site where Hamer and several other activists, including two teenagers were beaten in June 1963. Vickie Roberts-Ratliff, who spearheaded the placement of the marker and founded Bridging Winona, said Flakes played a vital role as a consultant.
“Her opinion, along with Mrs. Euvester Simpson, the only living survivor of the Winona Jail Incident, was of the utmost importance to our Land Literacy and Legacy Team,” Roberts-Ratliff said. “Jackie stressed how important it was for the community to not just put up signs, but to do the necessary work of discussing and learning from its history for transformative change.”
Roberts-Ratliff, who remained friends with Flakes after the unveiling, said Flakes was excited about working with her on future projects in the city of Winona, including the unveiling of another historical marker for the Mississippi Civil Rights Trail at the site of Staley’s Café where Hamer and the others were arrested in June 1963.
Jacqueline (left) and Euvester Simpson (right) listen as Vickie Roberts-Ratliff speaks during the marker unveiling in Winona.
“She was looking forward to participating in the 60th Commemoration and Celebration of the Fannie Lou Hamer Day in Winona coming up in June,” Roberts-Ratliff said. “We were developing a community play about the life of Fannie Lou Hamer in partnership with the Mississippi Humanities Council and the Montgomery County Arts Council. Jackie had agreed to be an advisor and participate in the play to further bridge healing in the community.”
Roberts-Ratliff said in an oral interview, Flakes spoke about the experiences her mother suffered in Winona and vowed she would never visit the city. But after meeting with community leaders and partners she began to feel a sense of community. She had also planned to work with the Winona Montgomery County Consolidated School District in partnership with the Alluvial Collective and the producers of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America in an upcoming oral history project.
In October, Flakes was a guest panelist for the Ford Foundation’s symposium, “Tell It Like It Is,” in honor of her mother. Brown University historian Keisha N. Blain, who organized the event with Ford President Darren Walker, praised Flakes for her tireless efforts to continue her mother’s work.
“Jackie dedicated her life to making sure that her mother’s efforts would not be in vain,” Blain said. “She was a careful curator and storyteller who boldly challenged misinterpretations of her mother’s ideas and political activism. She was a stalwart human rights activist whose shoes will not easily be filled.”
Visitation will be Friday, April 7, 4 – 6 pm at Byers Funeral Home in Ruleville. And funeral services are Saturday, April 8 at 2:30 pm at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church with burial to follow at the Mount Galilee Cemetery. Both are in Ruleville.
Flakes was twice divorced and had two sons, Shadney, and Trenton.