Taborian Hospital - Mound Bayou, MS

Fannie Lou Hamer died in the Knights of Tabor Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, also known as Taborian Hospital and the Delta Community Hospital. The facility opened in 1942 and the entire staff, including the doctors and the nurses were Black.

This one-of-a-kind all-Black Delta community, founded by former slaves, was once home to the renowned surgeon and civil rights activist, Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Mason (T.R.M) Howard. 

During her later years. Hamer was in and out of the hospital for various health issues including the horrific beating she endured in the Winona jail. Hamer said that beating left her with a damaged kidney and left thigh. In fact, she said she couldn’t walk to her own trial, they had to carry her to court. 

Unfortunately, Hamer never recovered from that assault; complications from cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and a life of terrific deprivation and hardship. Having suffered from polio as a child, Hamer had a very pronounced limp. But it didn’t stop her in her fight for what she called human rights. She did that for 15 years. 

Because she was constantly on the go marching, speaking and working on behalf of others, she neglected her own health. She remained active until her body just gave out.  In the early winter months of 1977, Fannie Lou Hamer was admitted to the hospital in Mound Bayou for the very last time. Her good friend Martha Smith from Measure for Measure expressed how “very hard” it was for her to “see such a strong, generous, and idealistic woman lying helpless, hopeless, broken and broke.” 

Fannie Lou Hamer died at the age of 59 on Monday, March 14, 1977, at 5 p.m. with a mountain of debt and in relative anonymity.