Born in 1917 in Mississippi to sharecropper parents, Fannie Lou Hamer is better known as a civil rights and women’s rights icon of the 1960s and 1970s and was also one of the pioneers of the food justice movement. Hamer grew up knowing what it meant to be hungry: “Poverty and poor health form an unbreakable circle, one which need[s] attention from the people who are supposed to represent us.” And it was exactly her personal experiences facing food insecurity and her strong desire to create economic opportunities for Black communities that eventually led her to establishing the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi in 1969. The program was dedicated to grassroots participation and providing Black households economic opportunity and sustainable access to healthy, locally grown foods. At its peak, the program spanned nearly 700 acres of land, where Black farmers gained access to land to grow and eat their own food. #BlackHistoryMonth
