A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer
Offering a fresh and stirring reappraisal of Fannie Lou Hamer’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement, this book draws on new interviews and fresh archival material to bring to life one of the most iconic figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Bestselling New York Time author Kate Clifford Larson offers this fresh and comprehensive biography for every reader.
Born the 20th child in a family deeply entrenched in the Mississippi Delta, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers, Hamer left school at 12 to pick cotton, entering a world in which white supremacy reigned. Despite a world in which she was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children and where she was denied the right to cast a ballot, Hamer refused to be repressed.
Hamer was an irresistible force in the Civil Rights Movement, lifting up her voice to propel change. Recruited by the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help with voter-registration drives, Hamer became a community organizer, women’s rights activist, and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Using her anger, courage, and faith in the Bible, she believed that hearts could be won over and injustice overcome. Hamer was the embodiment of protest, persevering through difficult times to ultimately transform lives and create revolutionary change. Walk With Me is the most complete biography on Fannie Lou Hamer ever written, capturing her full spirit and voice that led the fight for freedom and equality in America at its critical moment.
Reviews and endorsements of the publication include:
“Accessible and moving, Larson’s account offers history’s best gifts-context and complexity-to readers who want a better grasp of the trajectory of voting rights in our nation’s past.”
—Christianity Today
“Walk With Me is a gripping and skillfully researched political biography that embeds Hamer’s personal history within a compelling account of the post-World War II civil rights movement.”
—The New York Times
“Scholar Kate Clifford Larson, author of ‘Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero,’ has penned the definitive biography of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.”
—Atlanta Journal Constitution, “10 must-read Southern books this fall”
“This biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, the civil-rights advocate who challenged Mississippi segregationists with her powerful oratory and ‘unforgettable’ singing, places grassroots organizing by women at the heart of the battle for Black enfranchisement.”
—The New Yorker
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