UpFront

Fund Drive Special: Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Image: Fannie Lou Hamer at the August 1964 Democratic National Convention and a flyer for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Composite by Ariel Boone, from source images from the Library of Congress and organizational footage.

On this show:

0:08 – With the ongoing struggle for voting rights in the U.S., we shine a spotlight on the historic struggle for human rights and voting rights, bringing you history from the KPFA archives. Today we feature civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, airing clips from a 1965 interview between Hamer and Colin Edwards about Famer’s historic work founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the seats held in the DNC at the time by white southern racists

You can get this recording with many others in our Voices that Change the World collection for a donation of $200 or our mega-pack — with a set of emergency preparedness supplies for a fire or earthquake, plus a signed copy of This Immeasurable Place and A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area, recordings by Martín Espada, Sister Souljah, Vivian Gornick, Greg Grandin, and more — for $1,000.