Atlantic City, New Jersey

Other than her home state of Mississippi, no other state has as much historical significance for Fannie Lou Hamer than Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

Atlantic City is where Hamer carried the raw truth about Mississippi’s violence and racially-driven voter suppression onto a national stage. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Hamer appeared before the Credentials Committee as a representative of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the seating of Mississippi’s - all-white delegation - and demanded political representation for Black Mississippians who had been excluded from the democratic process.

In her testimony on August 22, 1964, Hamer described the retaliation she faced after trying to register to vote, including being evicted and fired from the plantation where worked and lived, an assassination attempt on her life, constant threats and the brutal beating she endured in the Winona, Mississippi jail. 

Hamer’s words exposed the human cost of voter suppression and forced the nation to confront what Black citizens in Mississippi risked daily simply to become “first-class citizens.” Even when President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to interrupt coverage of her testimony with an impromptu press conference, the networks later aired her remarks, making Hamer’s voice and her story impossible to ignore.

Although the MFDP was not fully seated at that convention, Atlantic City became a turning point in Hamer’s public life and in the civil rights movement. 

Hamer’s testimony helped educate the nation, strengthened pressure for equal voting rights, and made her one of the most powerful, moral and sought-after voices of her generation. Most importantly, her words coupled with the efforts of Aaron Henry, Ed King, Roy Wilkins and Dr. Martin Luther King aided in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Additionally, due to the direct actions of Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP, the Democratic Party adopted a new policy – the Credentials Committee would no longer seat delegates based on their race. 

Hamer also spoke on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City about the rights of all Black people to vote. On that same Boardwalk, she was joined by Nathan and Ann Schwerner about the refusal to seat the MFDP at the delegation. A few weeks earlier, the Schwerner’s son, Michael, and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were found buried in an earthen dam after being murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi for trying to help Black people to register to vote during Freedom Summer.

Atlantic City recognizes the accomplishments of Fannie Lou Hamer in many ways. In 2001, a Civil Rights Memorial Garden was constructed to honor the history and individuals of the movement. It features 11 granite columns including one with Hamer’s famous words spoken at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. 

In 2004, Stockton University held their first annual Fannie Lou Hamer Symposium to honor her historic legacy in Atlantic City and to challenge students to advance human and civil rights. In 2018, Stockton again celebrated Hamer by naming an event room in her honor. A few years later, union workers held a march for Hamer and unveiled a marker for her on Boardwalk Hall. The African American Heritage Museum, founded by historian Ralph Hunter, features a traveling exhibit of Hamer. 

In 2023, Dr. Patricia Reid Merritt, who spearheaded an effort to place a life-size statue of Fannie Lou Hamer in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi, donated a statue of Hamer to Stockton University. It currently stands on Boardwalk Hall. And one year later, the first historical marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail to be placed outside of the state was unveiled on the Boardwalk acknowledging the accomplishments of Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP at the Democratic National Convention. 

Hamer’s impact on Atlantic City is both historical and symbolic. Atlantic City represents the place where a poor sharecropper from Ruleville stood before the country and asked whether America would live up to its own promises of freedom, democracy, and human dignity. And Atlantic City is determined that Fannie Lou Hamer’s sacrifice – and her legacy never be forgotten. 

(VIDEO TO BE ADDED SOON!)