Of all the stories from the civil rights era, perhaps the most extraordinary and least told tale is that of the icon and freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hamer. An upcoming documentary will finally tell Hamer’s stirring story in her own words, thanks to a historic grant by the Kellogg Foundation to Mississippi’s Tougaloo College.
Keith Beauchamp, whose 2005 film, The Untold Story of Emmett Till, prompted the Department of Justice to reopen the investigation into Emmett’s murder, will serve as executive producer of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America. The doc will use Hamer’s letters, speeches and recordings to recount the life of one of the seminal heroes in Mississippi’s long and complicated history of pushback and resistance.