Fannie Lou Hamer’s Daughter To Speak At Event Honoring Women Of Color
October 17, 2019 – OMAHA, NE
Jacqueline Hamer Flakes, the daughter of civil rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer, will be the guest speaker at a luncheon honoring her mother and other women of color in Nebraska on Saturday, Oct. 26.
The inaugural luncheon, hosted by the Women of Color Nebraska Caucus (WOCNC), will acknowledge the contributions of activist Dr. Collette Yellow Robe, political advocate Precious McKesson and others.
“The purpose of the luncheon is to pay tribute to the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer and to recognize community women who demonstrate her legacy through public service and community volunteerism,” said WOCNC founder, LaVon Stennis-Williams. “The purpose of the organization is to uplift the voices of women of color and elevate issues which impact them, their families and communities.
A social and community advocate and author, Stennis-Williams said the WOCNC wanted to “memorialize” Hamer’s legacy in everything the freshman organization represents.
“Naming the luncheon in her honor is not only an opportunity to keep her legacy alive in places such as Nebraska,” Stennis-Williams said, “but to teach younger generations of girls about the leadership and resilience Mrs. Hamer displayed throughout her life.”
Besides her many humanitarian efforts, Hamer and several others founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in April 1964 that was inclusive to every race - and challenged the white’s only Democratic Party in Mississippi. Hamer and the MFDP believed that blacks in Mississippi would vote if given the opportunity. However, knowing the white power structure in the Jim Crow south would deny them the opportunity, the MFDP selected their own delegates, from the precinct level up to the state convention in Jackson on Aug. 5, 1964. Hamer was very influential in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and because of her efforts, Mississippi now has the highest number of black elected officials in the United States.
Like Hamer, the WOCNC also focuses on voter education and engagement to empower women, while working to eliminate barriers to their success.
“Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer had the ability to unite people of all races, ethnicities and political affiliation and that is needed now more than ever,” Stennis-Williams said. “I was inspired by Mrs. Hamer's leadership in forming WOCN and we are pleased to not only name our annual luncheon after her but to also have her daughter as our first keynote speaker.”
Flakes, who was adopted by Hamer and her husband, Perry (Pap) as an infant witnessed her mother’s love for people while growing up in the Mississippi Delta.
“If Mama was in town you knew it because there would always be a house full of people,” Flakes said. “If they weren’t in our den, there were sitting outside. People were sitting on the couches, on the floor on the stairway. They were just listening to her talk and laughing. And it wasn’t even about politics all the time. It was just like a family atmosphere where people could just come and visit. It didn’t matter who they were or where they were from.”
Flakes was one of four children adopted by the Hamers, including her sister, Lenora, who passed away on July 13, 2019, and their mother, Dorothy Jean, who died in 1966 when Flakes was 6-months-old. The Hamers adopted Jacqueline and 17-month-old Lenora after Dorothy’s death.
Hamer was unable to have children after a Mississippi doctor performed a hysterectomy, while removing a tumor, without her knowledge or consent. Longing for children of their own, the Hamers adopted all four girls as infants, including a fourth, Vergie Ree. Vergie died in October 2017.
Flakes, who spoke at the March On Washington Film Festival in September, is part of a Speaker’s Bureau for a multimodal project honoring her mother that features a new online educational resource, student workshop and an original documentary film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America.
“I think it’s a shame that it seems like, even with my own sons and nephews, that you don’t hear the teachers teaching children about Mama,” Flakes said. “They don’t have her name and her struggles in the schoolbooks in Mississippi for the kids to learn about her. So, it’s good to see this interest in her and people can see how far reaching her legacy is.”