Jacqueline “Cookie” Hamer Flakes, daughter of Fannie Lou Hamer dies
MARCH 27, 2023 – RULEVILLE, MS - (NEWS RELEASE) Jacqueline Hamer Flakes, the last remaining daughter of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer died Monday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 56 years old.
Flakes, who in recent years had been traveling and speaking about her mother’s legacy, 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.
“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,” McWilliams 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.
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.
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.
In 2021, she 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.
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 others, including two teenagers were beaten in June 1963.
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.”
Flakes was twice divorced and has two sons, Shadney, and Trenton.