Fierce and Fearless: A Womanist Tribute to Fannie Lou Hamer
February 5, 2025
I took a course over J-Term and cross-registered at Chicago Theological Seminary. The class was Proto-Womanist Thought, taught by Dr. Joanne Terrell. We explored what she termed Protowomanist, a reflective step backward, learning about women who embody the prototype of what we now recognize as Womanist. “What they contributed to womanist culture was significant for how they shaped us, but they didn’t have that language or permission from evangelical culture to encompass the social imagination to name themselves the term womanist.” (Dr. Terrell) Fannie Lou Hamer made the most significant impression on me among the women we studied, which included Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Jarena Lee, and Pauli Murray. Infamous for phrases like “telling it like it is,” she spoke of the National Anthem in terms of “home of the tree and land of the slave,” and most famously declared, “None of us are free until all of us are free.” What she accomplished in the Civil Rights movement began at the age of 43, from country roads in Mississippi to addressing an audience of political figures in the halls of Congress. Hamer believed that “We have to build our own power,” so much so that she acted on her beliefs in ways she couldn’t always express with words. It started in the pew, advocating for justice as a Voting Rights activist for SNCC when they met at the church where she lived; she was a woman of her own words: “You can pray until you faint, but if you don’t get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” She believed God ordained her work, which served as her guide, citing her favorite scripture, Luke 4:18. She lived by one of the tenets of womanism, which is not being a separatist except for health. I think that perfectly summarizes Keisha N. Blain's words in her book on Hamer, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, "The mantra ‘None of us are free until all of us are free’ also reinforces the idea that the fight for justice must be a global one and intersectional in nature, attending to the overlapping systems of oppression that shape the lives and experiences of each individual. Hamer’s political vision was grounded in the spirit of unity, solidarity, and, most of all, action.” (Blain) So, as we see the chaos and detriment of our democracy right before our eyes, we wonder what we can do. How can we do it? I revisit the notes I wrote to myself as I read the story of Fannie Lou Hamer…Just start. With Luke 4:18 as her guide, The Spirit of the Lord is on me because I have been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. I have been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. At the age of 43, she went from that pew and hit the pavement fighting for justice and didn’t stop until her last breath.
TaKeena Cochren
MDIV, McCormick Theological Seminary