This Little Light of Mine: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story

Robin N. Hamilton's documentary short offers a brief yet effective portrait of one of the heroes of the Civil Rights movement—Fannie Lou Hamer, a woman who rose from the poverty of Mississippi sharecropping to ultimately challenge the Democratic Party's embrace of racist politics. Hamer was the subject of violent physical abuse: a white doctor performed a hysterectomy without her consent, she was fired and evicted for attempting to register to vote, and was severely beaten in 1963 in a Winona, MS, jail after attending a civil rights planning meeting. During the Democratic National Convention in 1964, Hamer gained wider prominence as the vice-chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Party, offering an eloquent rebuke to the segregated, anti-civil-rights delegation representing her state. No less a figure than President Lyndon B. Johnson was caught off-guard by the power of her testimony before the convention's credentials committee about racist forces that were preventing African Americans from exercising their right to vote. Although Hamer's time in the national spotlight was relatively limited—she returned to Mississippi where she mounted two unsuccessful bids for Congress while also remaining a civil rights advocate up until her death from breast cancer in 1977—this compelling film effectively illustrates Hamer's nationally witnessed effort to secure her constitutional rights in an environment where white political and police leadership refused to see her as an equal. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)