Fannie Lou Hamer Singing, March Against Fear, Mississippi
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Object Details
Artist/Maker
Charmian Reading, American, born Canada, 1930–2014
Date
1966, printed ca. 1990
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Please contact the Museum for more information
Credit
Purchase with funds from the H. B. and Doris Massey Charitable Trust and Lucinda W. Bunnen for the Bunnen Collection
Accession #
1994.62
Description
Charmian Reading was a photographer for the Medical Committee for Human Rights, formed in 1964 to support the Mississippi voter registration campaign and to provide public health services in rural areas with limited or no access. Here, she portrays Fannie Lou Hamer, the youngest of twenty children in a family of sharecroppers, who came to prominence during the 1964 Democratic Convention as the leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the all-White regular delegation. Here, Hamer leads a round of “We Shall Overcome,” the closing anthem at most movement gatherings.