Jonathan Logan Family Foundation Awards $25,000 Grant to Part Two of the Fannie Lou Hamer Digital Driving Tour
RULEVILLE, Mississippi - October 2, 2026 – As organizations across the country commemorate the 109th anniversary of Fannie Lou Hamer’s birth, organizers of the Fannie Lou Hamer’s America project have announced a $25,000 grant award from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation to expand the Fannie Lou Hamer Digital Driving Tour.Part Two of the driving tour will build on the recently relaunched digital experience, which highlights historic locations connected to Hamer’s grassroots organizing, voting rights work, food justice and community empowerment.The grant will support research, and the production of 12 new tour stops and multimedia resources that will expand public access to the places, people and stories that impacted Hamer’s extraordinary life and legacy. Each location will include short documentary-style videos, archival audio, historical photographs, news articles and immersive digital resources designed to make Hamer’s story more accessible to classrooms, researchers, cultural heritage travelers and the public.Jonathan Logan
Support from the Foundation builds on its earlier investment in the award-winning documentary film Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, which aired on PBS and WORLD Channel in 2022. Their support also allowed for community engagement, extending the film’s educational and public-history impact from the screen to the communities and landmarks instrumental to Hamer’s activism.
"Monica Land's acclaimed documentary film Fannie Lou Hamer’s America helped bring her aunt Fannie Lou's story to national audiences through rare archival footage and speeches," said Foundation President and CEO Jonathan Logan. "The driving tour is the perfect complement to the film, allowing even more people to learn about the people and places that shaped Hamer's life and work."
The original 10 location driving tour was created as part of the film’s “Find Your Voice” K-12 curriculum and has grown into a digital heritage resource featuring sites in Mississippi and Atlantic City. The tour relaunched in August with 12 short videos featuring archival footage, photographs and historical materials. The driving tour was produced by Land and videographer|editor Tommy Kirkpatrick of CommonHouse Productions and funded by the Mississippi Humanities Council, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Visit Atlantic City.The Fannie Lou Hamer Digital Driving Tour is available on YouTube
The expanded project will guide visitors through sites where movement landmarks help illuminate Hamer’s role in the broader struggle for civil rights and help preserve local histories tied to Hamer’s advocacy and leadership.
“We are extremely grateful to the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation for recognizing the power of Aunt Fannie Lou’s story and their support in helping us to continue to share her legacy in engaging new ways,” Land said.
The driving tour is available on the film’s website and features additional resources, and their YouTube Channel.
Born on a plantation in rural Mississippi on Oct. 6, 1917, Fannie Lou Hamer was a voting rights advocate, humanitarian and community organizer who became one of the most powerful voices of the Civil Rights Movement. After being fired and evicted from her plantation job for trying to register to vote in 1962, she helped organize voter registration drives and co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Beaten at the hands of local law enforcement in a Winona, Miss. jail for her activism efforts in 1963, Hamer is remembered for her courage, plainspoken moral clarity, and lifelong fight for political, economic, and basic human rights.
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation supports organizations that advance social justice through investigative journalism, documentary film and arts and culture, with a focus on ideas and actions that illuminate the world and create positive change. Funding the Fannie Lou Hamer’s America project reflects that mission by supporting documentary storytelling, historical preservation and public education centered on one of the nation’s most important voices for voting rights, economic justice and human dignity.