Fear Not the Fall: The Strength of the Human Spirit

"I will talk about the power of the human spirit epitomized in Fannie Lou Hamer and her legacy of activism and social work, characterized by indomitable will and tenaciousness. Fannie Lou Hamer has been referred to as a life-sized hero because she inspires us to believe that each of us can cause change, can act from conviction and step out on the promise. Indeed, it was her very ordinariness that allowed people to see themselves more clearly. Her many successes, some of which will be outlined here, give us courage to do likewise. However, in order to fully understand the strength of Fannie Lou Hamer’s spirit and her contributions to humanity, we must understand the era in which she lived and, specifically, the conditions imposed on her by her socio-economic position in the Deep South, in the America of the 1960s."