Fannie Lou Hamer

Starred review from February 15, 2020
This in-depth biography of a civil rights icon also serves as unflinching testimony to the horrors of racism. Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-77) was born in Mississippi to parents who were sharecroppers. The institutionalized deprivation and everyday hardships she experienced as an African American child growing up in abject poverty turned into personal physical attacks and sexual assaults when she became a crusader for Black suffrage during the 1960s. Despite chronic physical and emotional pain, Hamer, perhaps most often remembered for her famous statement, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, championed racial equality, women's rights, and educational parity for over two decades. As the director of Find Your Voice: The Online Resource for Fannie Lou Hamer Studies, author Brooks (A Voice That Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement, 2014) had unusual access to Hamer's personal correspondence and family members for this biography. She has documented a life of unparalleled dedication set against a background of unrelenting discrimination, personal tragedy, and social upheaval. Sympathetic and authoritative, at times difficult to read, this is a testimonial to a courageous woman and her deep commitment to human rights.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)