Fannie Lou Hamer Park and Multi-Purpose Complex, Ruleville, MS

With the opening of the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden, several local activists and movement veterans decided that a Hamer museum was in order, a proximate place to feature her life and a few artifacts associated with it. 

On display is the typewriter used by Hamer’s friend and fellow SNCC activist, Charles Maclaurin, who used it to type her letters and reports. The typewriter was donated to the museum by World War 2 veteran Sgt. Elisha Langdon. The museum also has photos and documents relating to Hamer’s activism, as well as many artifacts from life on a plantation – a life she was very familiar with. Signs throughout the museum acknowledge Hamer’s Freedom Farm and Pig Bank that fed hundreds; her efforts to help families have homes and the daycare center she started that helped her to bring Head Start to Mississippi. 

An interview with Hamer’s last living daughter, Jacqueline “Cookie” Hamer Flakes was filmed at the museum for the documentary, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America.

Originally overseen by the late Hattie Jordan, the museum tells a far larger story, placing Hamer’s activism in the larger context of the fight for civil rights in the Delta as well as the state of Mississippi.

The Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden and gravesite is down the street from the museum. Hamer’s statue and historical marker are in the garden.