Screening Of Fannie Lou Hamer Film To Highlight Fundraiser To Sustain Mississippi Humanities Council
Benefits from screening to offset DOGE cuts to new and existing MHC programming
VICKSBURG, MS – (June 17, 2025) – A screening of the award-winning film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, will be held Saturday, June 21 at 7 p.m. at the Strand Theatre in Vicksburg as part of a fundraising event for the Mississippi Humanities Council (MHC). Admission is free. But donations are welcome and encouraged. Donations can also be made online for those who cannot attend.
After the screening, there will be a panel discussion exploring Hamer’s enduring legacy with the film’s producer and Hamer’s niece, Monica Land, and activist and MHC Board Chair Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore. Dr. Stuart Rockoff, Executive Director of the MHC, will moderate the discussion.
“’Fannie Lou Hamer’s America’” is one of the projects we have been most proud to support,” Rockoff said. “To be able to highlight Mrs. Hamer and help bring this vital Mississippi story to a national audience speaks to the vital role the Mississippi Humanities Council plays in our state.”
“I am really excited to be a part of the screening on the life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” McLemore said. “She was a personal friend of mine and I remember when I first met Mrs. Hamer back in 1963. We were riding a bus from Cleveland, Mississippi to Dorchester County, Georgia to participate in a Citizenship Education Workshop.
We were talking about our background and what we had been doing in the Movement and Mrs. Hamer, in less than a year,” he continued, “had been evicted from the W.D. Marlow the third plantation in Sunflower County. And as she told her story about that eviction, the history of Sunflower County and the history of her family, there were about 25 to 30 of us there, and there was not a dry eye in the room. Mrs. Hamer really impacted my life profoundly.”
Activist and former MHC Board Chair Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore (above) will speak with the audience after Saturday’s screening about his work with Fannie Lou Hamer as a young Rust College student and SNCC volunteer.
Organizers said the event is more than a celebration of history - it is also a call to action. After recent federal funding cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) resulted in the elimination of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, the MHC is turning to the community to help sustain the kind of enriching public programming that federal support once made possible.
“What I really like about the Mississippi Humanities Council is their programs are community based,” McLemore said. “They are developed by community leaders. They are operationalized in the communities. They are sponsored by local community people, and they involve community folks. The MHC participates in programs almost in all 82 counties of Mississippi.”
McLemore has been involved with the humanities council since Dr. Cora Ellen Norman was handpicked to lead and shape the newly founded entity in 1972.
“Cora had the unique ability to bring Black and white folks together. And she perhaps did more for race relations during her time as MHC Chair than any one person in Mississippi,” McLemore said. “And the Mississippi Humanities Council has carried on that tradition. Stuart and his staff have really done an outstanding job. So, I am always pleased and willing to participate in humanity council programs because they have such an impact on the local community and it gives me the opportunity to interface and have conversations with local people.”
Proceeds from Saturday’s screening will directly support the Mississippi Humanities Council’s ongoing work to bring public programs, educational opportunities and cultural initiatives to communities across the state - work now at risk due to the loss of federal NEH grants. Programs like this screening and discussion exemplify the MHC’s mission to foster dialogue, preserve history and support the humanities in Mississippi.
Joy Davenport (right) director and editor of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, speaks to the audience at the 2024 screening in Jackson, MS sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council.
“The Mississippi Humanities Council gave us our first grant and several grants after that to fund our mission to preserve and amplify Aunt Fannie Lou’s voice,” Land, the film’s producer said. “Without their support, there would be no Fannie Lou Hamer’s America.”
Premiering on PBS and WORLD Channel in February 2022, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America allows the late activist and humanitarian to tell her own story in her own words – spoken and sung - through archival audio and video footage. In December 2022, the film was named “Best TV Feature Documentary Or Mini-Series” by the International Documentary Association (IDA) and in 2023, it won the “Best Documentary” award by The National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC).
“The screening of this film is unique among the different documentaries that have been done on Mrs. Hamer,” McLemore said, “because you actually hear Mrs. Hamer speak. I mean - she is speaking! And the director and the writers that put the film together did a wonderful job of capturing the voice and the experience of Mrs. Hamer. So, I am looking forward to the screening and the conversation that we’ll have with the audience in Vicksburg.”
The goal of the film and its website, www.fannielouhamersamerica.com is to teach others about Hamer’s work, accomplishments and legacy, and to serve as a clearinghouse of all things Fannie Lou Hamer. Its K-12 Educational Curriculum, Find Your Voice, features original lesson plans written by educators in the Mississippi Delta, a children’s book, an animated BrainPOP movie and a free STEM program, the Sunflower County Film Academy for high school students in Hamer’s native Mississippi Delta.
The MHC has funded each element of the curriculum and in March 2022 awarded the project the Preserver of Mississippi Culture Award at their 25th annual gala.
“Participating in this event is so important to me because of the work the MHC has done to continually support our vision,” Land said. “They awarded us a grant in 2024 that was going to help us upgrade our Driving Tour of Fannie Lou Hamer sites. But because of cuts enforced by DOGE, we may not receive the remaining funds from that grant. The work the MHC does is so important because not only does it honor the people, the places and the history of the state, but it provides educational opportunities that many students and people may not have otherwise.”
Hamer’s educational website will soon feature a digital library and museum.
In 2023, the MHC unveiled two Mississippi Freedom Trail historical markers honoring Hamer - one in Winona at the site where Hamer and several others were arrested in June 1963, and another in August, in Atlantic City, New Jersey where Hamer spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 1964.
In 2024, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America was shown at the two Mississippi Museums in Jackson as a joint venture between the MHC, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) and the Mississippi Film Office to to bring free, high-quality documentary film screenings to public audiences every month.
Community members, supporters of the humanities and all those who value Mississippi’s rich history are encouraged to attend the screening Saturday, and contribute to ensuring that the Council can continue its mission in the face of unprecedented challenges.
Event Details:
Strand Theatre | 717 Clay Street | Vicksburg, MS |June 21 | 6:30 PM (Doors) | 7:00 (Screening) | Panel Discussion to follow | Donation Link