Fannie Lou Hamer's America

Directed by Joy Davenport, Produced by Monica Land

US | 2022 | 60 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W211289 |

FANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA, winner of Best TV Feature Documentary or miniseries at the IDA Awards, is a portrait of Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

License:

Format:

PRICE:

Host a screening

Watch on Kanopy

SYNOPSIS

Fannie Lou Hamer was a leader in the civil rights movement, founder of the Freedom Democratic Party in Mississippi, and the organizer of Freedom Summer, a volunteer-based campaign launched in the summer of 1964 in order to register as many Black voters in Mississippi as possible.

FANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA, a documentary produced by her grand-niece Monica Land, and winner of Best TV Feature Documentary or miniseries at the IDA Awards, is a portrait of a civil rights activist and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

PRESS

“A powerful film, one that illustrates the challenges and sacrifices so many faced in fighting for the right to vote."

Sylvia Bugg Chief Programming Executive & General Manager, PBS

“There are few Mississippians who have played a more prominent role at a pivotal point in American history than Fannie Lou Hamer. Her story has been an inspiration to so many people, past and present, working for social justice and human dignity, not only in America but around the world.”

Lloyd Gray Executive Director, Hardin Foundation

“This film makes the point that this struggle really has been going on forever."

Alan Bowling Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Arlington

“Monica Land has provided us with the rare opportunity to peek inside the life of one of America’s most important moral leaders.”

Erika Dilday, Executive Director, American Documentary

“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America will steep viewers in Black history while providing greater context for and insight into some of today’s biggest challenges.” –

Chris Hastings Executive Producer & Managing Editor, WORLD Channel

“A perfect Black History Month watch.”

Jared Alexander The Grio

“A humanizing treatment.”

James Bennett II GBH

“An expressive look at the life of Fannie Lou Hamer."

BET

“Listening to it, viewers can hear Hamer's sense of urgency, which still resonates today."

Rebekah Barber Facing South

“The film is offering to a new generation of audiences called upon to take up the mantle of preserving American democracy.”

Baltimore Times

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

WINNER, Best TV Feature Documentary or miniseries, IDA Awards

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Joy Davenport

Joy Elaine Davenport is a director, editor, and composer currently based in Chicago, Illinois. She has worked as a freelancer on every aspect of film production for over a decade. Her mission as a documentary filmmaker is to elevate and empower underrepresented voices. FANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA is her directorial debut. (3/22)

Monica Land

Monica Land is an award-winning journalist and has been writing for local and national media outlets for more than twenty-five years. She specializes in investigative and statistical reporting, feature and enterprise articles, general news writing and historical research. As the niece of civil rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer, Land has written numerous feature articles about Hamer, as well as an essay for the book, PIECES FROM THE PAST: VOICES OF HEROIC WOMEN IN CIVIL RIGHTS (2011) published by Joan H. Sadoff and Tasora Books. Land has also produced historical segments for Entertainment Tonight and A&E's Biography. (3/22)

View Discussion Guide

Director: Joy Elaine Davenport

Producer: Monica Land

Writer/Script: Joy Davenport, Monica Land

Cinematography: Joy Davenport, Pablo Correa, RJ Fitzpatrick

Music/Sound: Joy Davenport

Executive Producers: Monica Land and Selena Lauterer

Lead Consultant and Researcher: Dr. Maegan Parker Brooks

Consultant and Research: Dr. Davis W. Houck

Special Thanks: Keith Beauchamp

Subject Areas

Storming Caesars Palace

STORMING CAESARS PALACE chronicles the life of Ruby Duncan, an activist who fights the welfare system and becomes a White House advisor. A real-life superhero, she takes on both the Nevada political establishment and organized crime in a valiant and resolute act of civil disobedience.

Learn more

Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power

An intimate and inspiring  portrait of  Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), a champion of civil rights and the lone vote in opposition of the broad authorization of military force following the September 11th  attacks. 

Learn more

Chisholm '72 - Unbought and Unbossed

This compelling documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land.

Learn more

Living Thinkers: An Autobiography of Black Women in the Ivory Tower

LIVING THINKERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE IVORY TOWER examines the intersection of race, class and gender for Black women professors and administrators working in U.S. colleges and universities today. Through their diverse narratives, from girlhood to the present, Black women from different disciplines share experiences that have shaped them, including segregated schooling as children, and the trials, disappointments and triumphs encountered in Academia. Though more than 100 years have passed since the doors to higher education opened for Black women, their numbers as faculty members are woefully low and for many still, the image of Black women as intellectuals is incomprehensible. And while overtly expressed racism, sexism and discrimination have declined, their presence is often still often unacknowledged. Through frank and sometimes humorous conversations, this documentary interrogates notions of education for girls and women and the stereotypes and traditions that affect the status of Black women both in and out of the Academy. A perfect companion film for any classroom discussion on the intersection of racism, sexism and/or feminism.

Learn more

The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen

An inspiring film by award winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Abod, PhD (THE EDGE OF EACH OTHER’S BATTLES: THE VISION OF AUDRE LORDE). THE PASSIONATE PURSUITS provides a window into the life of Angela Bowen who grew up in inner city Boston during the Jim Crow era, and went on to become a classical ballerina, a legendary dance teacher, a black lesbian feminist activist organizer, writer and professor. For six decades Bowen has influenced and inspired untold numbers, speaking out as strongly for the Arts, and Black and Women’s Rights as she has for LGBTQI Rights. Candid, compelling, and inspiring, PASSIONATE PURSUITS depicts Bowen's life across the decades, with archival footage, timeless musical selections, photographs and interviews. Bowen’s stories reveal how the challenges of race, class, gender, age, and sexuality played into her decisions and strategies for survival. PASSIONATE PURSUITS is important to anyone who wants to know more about the experiences and complexities of black women’s lives and the emergence of Black Feminism.

Learn more

Standing on My Sisters' Shoulders

In 1965, when three women walked into the US House of Representatives in Washington D.C., they had come a very long way. Neither lawyers nor politicians, they were ordinary women from Mississippi,and descendants of African slaves. They had come to their country’s capital seeking civil rights, the first black women to be allowed in the senate chambers in nearly 100 years. A missing chapter in our nation’s record of the Civil Rights movement, this powerful documentary reveals the movement in Mississippi in the 1950’s and 60’s from the point of view of the courageous women who lived it – and emerged as its grassroots leaders. Their living testimony offers a window into a unique moment when the founders’ promise of freedom and justice passed from rhetoric to reality for all Americans. Through moving interviews and powerful archival footage, STANDING ON MY SISTERS' SHOULDERS weaves a story of commitment, passion and perseverance and tells the story of the women fought for change in Mississippi and altered the course of American history forever.

Learn more

Mountains that Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama

Thirteen years, two radical activist all-stars-one conversation. Internationally renowned scholar, professor and writer Angela Davis and 89-year-old grassroots organizer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Yuri Kochiyama spent over a decade conversing intimately about personal histories and influences that shaped them and their overlapping experiences. MOUNTAINS THAT TAKE WING offers the gift of these two remarkable women’s lives, sharing the pair’s recorded exchanges in 1996 and 2008. The film’s unique format honors the scope and depth of their knowledge on topics ranging from Jim Crow laws and Japanese American internment camps, to Civil Rights, anti-war, women’s and gay liberation movements, to today’s campaigns for political prisoners and prison reform. Intercut with compelling period footage, Davis and Kochiyama’s cogent observations, keen analyses, and steadfast resolve to create a more equitable, humane world offer inspiring lessons in empowerment and community building for current and future generations.

Learn more

Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice

Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American woman who lived in Harlem for more than 40 years and had a long history of activism on a wide range of issues. Through extensive interviews with family and friends, archival footage, music and photographs, YURI KOCHIYAMA chronicles this remarkable woman’s contribution to social change through some of the most significant events of the 20th century, including the Black Liberation movement, the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, and the Japanese American Redress movement. In an era of divided communities and racial conflict, Kochiyama offered an outstanding example of an equitable and compassionate multiculturalist vision.

Learn more

The Vienna Tribunal

Highlights of moving personal testimonies at the Global Tribunal on Violations of Women's Rights-held in conjunction with U.N. World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993-reveal why women's rights need to be seen as human rights. Made in conjunction with the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, THE VIENNA TRIBUNAL is not simply a film documenting events of the past, but a thought-provoking analysis of the abuses women suffer all over the world.

Learn more

OUR CATALOG