New Fannie Lou Hamer Film Awarded “Reflecting Mississippi” Grant

NOVEMBER 12, 2021 – JACKSON, MS

A new documentary featuring rare archival audio and video footage of the late civil rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer, has received a $10,000 grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council (MHC) as part of their “Reflecting Mississippi” program.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a 90-minute film that allows Hamer, an often-overlooked proponent for equal rights during the 1960s and 70s to tell her own story – in her own words. And it is scheduled for broadcast on PBS in February 2022.

Dr. Stuart Rockoff, executive director of MHC, said the new and original film “will help shine a light on one of Mississippi’s most extraordinary people.”

“Mrs. Hamer was an important, authentic leader, who challenged Mississippi and America to live up to its constitutional ideals,” he said further.

Throughout 2022, MHC will celebrate 50 years of serving the people of Mississippi through their grant programs. Projects that qualify for “Reflecting Mississippi” funding will focus on diverse stories of the state including local history; stories of underrepresented communities and parts of state history and culture that have often not been reflected in mainstream narratives.

“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a wonderful example of the type of programs we hope to support during our 50th anniversary year. Mrs. Hamer’s extraordinary life truly reflects both the challenging and heroic parts of the Mississippi story,” Rockoff said.

The Mississippi Museum of Art partnered with MHC in March 2020 for a screening of the film for their “Art and Coffee” program. A future screening at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is planned for March 2022.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a multimodal project that highlights and preserves the life and legacy of the late humanitarian, activist, and Mississippi Delta native. The centerpiece of the project is the documentary, but it also features a K-12 educational curriculum, a young filmmakers’ workshop for high school students in the Mississippi Delta and an online resource center where students and researchers can find an abundance of information and little-known facts about Hamer.

A former sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hamer worked tirelessly to help thousands of Blacks to register and vote in Mississippi. She also established food banks, provided housing, and established educational programs for the impoverished, particularly those living in the historically underserved Mississippi Delta.

This is the fourth grant the project has received from MHC. Previous grants have supported the educational curriculum and the young filmmakers’ workshop – the Sunflower County Film Academy – that teaches high school students to express themselves creatively and document their family history though video while introducing them to career options in the Digital Arts field. The “Reflecting Mississippi” grant will help pay for the archival footage used in the documentary.

“We are tremendously grateful for the continued support of the Mississippi Humanities Council,” the film’s producer, Monica Land said. “They have understood our vision from the very beginning and did not hesitate to support it. They have consistently shown that Fannie Lou Hamer is important not only to the state of Mississippi, but also that her endeavors have greatly contributed to the nation.”  

About MHC: The Mississippi Humanities Council is a private nonprofit corporation funded by Congress through the National Endowment for the Humanities to provide public programs in traditional liberal arts disciplines to serve nonprofit groups in Mississippi. The humanities are the study of history, literature, religion, languages, philosophy, and culture. The Mississippi Humanities Council creates opportunities for Mississippians to learn about themselves and the larger world and enriches communities through civil conversations about our history and culture.