Almost 58 years after her death on March 14, 1977, President Joe Biden posthumously awarded Civil Rights champion Fannie Lou Hamer the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Jan. 4.
Hamer was among 19 Americans recognized by the president, and others included: former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, actors Michael J. Fox and Denzel Washington, retired basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
Biden presented Hamer’s medal to her niece, Doris Hamer Richardson.
As Richardson stood by President Biden’s side, the announcer said, “The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the most powerful voices of the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer spent 18 years as a sharecropper in Mississippi before learning that Black citizens had a constitutional right to vote.”
He continued, “ With that newfound freedom, she sacrificed her own safety and registered Black voters across the South. She spoke truth to power to expand political participation and economic rights for all Americans. And left these words echoing in the nation’s conscience: ‘Nobody is free until everybody’s free.’”
In an interview with Mississippi Today, Richardson stated, “I have so many wonderful memories of Aunt Fannie Lou. It’s an amazing feeling to be here in D.C. to honor her. And I’m so grateful that she is being recognized with this award and that history continues to be made in her name.”
With the impending Trump administration threatening to push back on programming and efforts toward equity in the United States, such as eradicating the Department of Education, mass deportation and promising to be a dictator on day one, it is important to keep Hamer’s mission of true equality at the forefront of our minds.
Further, President-elect Donald Trump was no friend of protecting voting rights for Black Americans and addressing voter suppression in communities of color during his first term, and we should assume nothing will change in his second.
As Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Therefore, we owe it to Hamer’s memory and sacrifices to register and vote in every election.
We do not have the luxury of being discouraged, giving up, or not continuing to work to achieve Hamer’s mission of freedom for all.
Instead, let us find inspiration in Hamer’s words, “You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try and do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.”
Keywords:** Fannie Lou Hamer, President Joe Biden, civil rights, voting rights, legacy
#FannieLouHamer #CivilRightsLegend #BidenHonorsHamer
