Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement
Written by Carole Boston Weatherford
Narrated by Janina Edwards
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977.
Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that - despite President Johnson's interference - aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats. Based on the critically acclaimed 2016 Caldecott and Sibert Honor Book and winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award, Voice of Freedom celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer's life and legacy with a message of hope, determination, and strength.
©2015 Carole Boston Weatherford (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford has written many award-winning books for children, including Kin, illustrated by her son Jeffery and a Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient; Box, which won a Newbery Honor; Unspeakable, which won the Coretta Scott King Award, a Caldecott Honor, and was a finalist for the National Book Award; Respect: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award; ALA Notable Children’s Book You Can Fly; and Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square; Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement; and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Carole lives in North Carolina. Visit her at CBWeatherford.com.
More audiobooks from Carole Boston Weatherford
Becoming Billie Holiday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library (AUDIO) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freedom in Congo Square Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Birmingham 1963 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Negro League Scrapbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman's Case for Equality and Respect Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer - Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Are My Pride: A Love Letter from Your Motherland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Voice of Freedom
Related audiobooks
Strong Voices: Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fierce 44: Black Americans Who Shook Up the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStone River Crossing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5We Are Still Here: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Young Readers' Edition: The Story of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Show Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Denied, Detained, Deported Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (with a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Powwow Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFreedom Soup Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silent Thunder: A Civil War Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/528 Days: Moments in Black History That Changed the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBefore She Was Harriet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Halfway to Perfect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Almost Zero: A Dyamonde Daniel Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flame and Shadow: Poetry of Sara Teasdale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sugar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Roads Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fires in Our Lives: Advice for Teachers from Today's High School Students Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glory Field Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Game of Silence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Was Eight Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harriet Tubman Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Children's Social Themes For You
The Bad Seed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventures of Captain Underpants: Color Edition (Captain Underpants #1): Captain Underpants, Book 1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Days With Frog and Toad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Darkstalker: Wings of Fire: Legends, Book 1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moon Rising (Wings of Fire #6) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frog and Toad Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winnie-the-Pooh Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good Egg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dragonet Prophecy: Wings of Fire, Book 1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Smart Cookie Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Bad Case of Stripes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sour Grape Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harold & The Purple Crayon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes: Now a Netflix Originals Movie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bridge to Terabithia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of My Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ungifted Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The School for Good and Evil: Now a Netflix Originals Movie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pax Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wish Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The One and Only Ivan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Happened to Rachel Riley? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5New Kid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unwanteds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love in the Library Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5That Was Then, This Is Now Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Voice of Freedom
7 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This much-awarded book is told in the voice of Fannie Lou Hamer herself in a free verse format that includes many actual quotes from Hamer. Most of these quotations come from “An Oral History With Fannie Lou Hamer;” her biography; and her speeches. [The text of many of her speeches can be found here.] As the author explains in a Note at the end of the book, Fannie Lou Hamer was considered “the spirit, or the voice, of the civil rights movement.”Fannie Lou Hamer (nee Townsend) was born in Mississippi. She came from a family of poor sharecroppers, the youngest of twenty children, and often had to wear rags tied around her feet instead of shoes. In the book, she explains why there were so many kids:“When I was born, on October 6, 1917, the plantation ownerpaid my mother fifty dollars for producing a future field hand.The money helped my family through the winter.Chile, I am proof that the Delta birthed the blues.”Her mother was a strong woman, and taught her daughter that black was beautiful and she deserved respect. She said: “If you respect yourself enough, other people will have to respect you.” Fannie bore this out later in her own life.In the 1940s she met her husband, Perry "Pap" Hamer, who worked on a neighboring plantation, where they then worked together for eighteen years until she was fired for trying to vote. In 1961 she went into a hospital to have a small uterine tumor removed; without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilized by a white doctor as a part of the state of Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state. [Forced sterilization was so common among African-American women in those days that it became known as a “Mississippi appendectomy.”]On August 23, 1962, Hamer attended a sermon by Rev. James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who ended his talk with an appeal to those assembled to register to vote. At the time, only six percent of eligible black citizens in Mississippi were registered. They knew that to register was to place at risk to their job security, personal safety and even their lives.Nevertheless, Hamer was the first volunteer to register. She later said:"I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared - but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.”On August 31, 1962, she traveled on a rented bus with other attendees of Bevel's sermon to Indianola, Mississippi, to register. People in the group were scared, and Hamer began to sing hymns to boost their morale. Ms. Hamer failed the test and lost her job for trying. But she discovered her passion, and became a leader and public figure in the civil rights movement. As Mississippi History Now observed: "Prospective black voters inevitably failed the test, whether they were well-educated or not. Even after several years of effort in Sunflower County, by the spring of 1965 only 155 black people — 1.1 percent of those eligible to vote — were registered, while more than 7,000 whites were registered, or 80 percent of those eligible to vote."(She studied hard and passed the test the next year, making her one of 28,000 blacks registered in Mississippi out of a total of 422,256 eligible black voters.)Hamer came to the attention of SNCC organizer Bob Moses, who dispatched someone from the organization with instructions to find "the lady who sings the hymns.” Hamer was recruited by SNCC, and she began traveling around the South doing activist work for the organization. In the book she reports:“I toured the South with words from my heartand spirituals I learned at my mother’s knee.I fired up many a rally.”On June 9, 1963, Hamer was on her way back from Charleston, South Carolina with other activists from a literacy workshop, and the group was stopped in Winona, Mississippi and arrested on a false charge. In jail, Hamer and her colleagues were beaten savagely by the police, almost to the point of death. It took Hamer over a month to recover from the beating.Again, she was not deterred nor did she become discouraged or cynical. As Fannie later said, and included as a quote by the author:“I have lived long enough to knowthat no race has a corner on decency.I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain’t no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God’s face. Out of one blood God made all nations.”She returned to Mississippi to organize voter registration drives. In the summer of 1964 she helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or MFDP, organized to challenge Mississippi's all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention. Hamer was elected Vice-Chair. In Washington, D.C., President Lyndon Johnson was so reportedly so fearful of the power of Hamer's testimony on live television that he called an “emergency” press conference in an effort to divert press coverage from Hamer. But all he did on it was to announce the nine-month anniversary of the shooting of Texas governor, John Connally, during the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Many television networks then ran Hamer's unedited speech anyway on their late news programs. The Credentials Committee received thousands of calls and letters in support of the “Freedom Democrats.”Johnson dispatched several Democratic Party operatives to negotiate with the Freedom Democrats, including Senator Hubert Humphrey, to suggest a “compromise” giving the MFDP two non-voting seats in exchange for other concessions. But when Humphrey outlined the compromise to the Credentials Committee, saying that his position on the ticket was at stake, Hamer sharply rebuked him:"Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four hundred thousand black people's lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I'm going to pray to Jesus for you."Hamer's speech to the Committee brought many to tears, and gained her national attention.At the next convention in 1968, Hamer became the first African American delegate since the post-Civil War Reconstruction period and the first-ever woman delegate from Mississippi. She was seated to a thunderous ovation.Hamer continued to work for Civil Rights, for women’s rights, and to help feed the poor until she died of complications of heart disease and breast cancer on March 14, 1977. She is buried in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi, where her tombstone reads one of her famous quotes, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”In this book for children, Ekua Holmes does an exceptional job at illustrating this story with colorful textured collages reminiscent of quilts.Evaluation: Hamer’s amazing courage and persistence in the face of very real and dangerous obstacles will impress and inspire readers who are unaware that as recently as the 1960’s, you could be signing your own death sentence in the South if you even tried to vote. She is a genuine American hero who should not be forgotten. I am so glad to see her story told for children.Recommended age range: 10-14
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Presents a collage-illustrated treasury of poems and spirituals inspired by the life and work of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fannie Lou Hamer's story and voice is expressed in a strong, plain-spoken tone, befitting the powerful presence she must have been. The illustrations are dramatic and vivid, pulling in readers as much as the poems. Best for middle schoolers up and mature older elementary readers. The term "n****r b***h" appears in a scene when Fannie Lou is beaten up by jailers and prisoners, and its appearance is stark and horrifying. Guidance and discussion is recommended when sharing this title.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well-done and well-researched book about Mississippi Civil Rights movement figure Fannie Lou Hamer. The story is written in poetic (although non-rhyming) form. The book includes a biographical sketch of Hamer, a time line of the Civil Rights movement, and a bibliography of sources on Hamer. It is well-deserving of all the awards it received.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Telling Fannie Lou Hamer’s life story in a series of poems through the eyes of the civil rights activist, Carole Boston Weatherford captures Hamer’s down-to-earth, spirited nature. One of twenty children, born in 1917, Hamer was raised in Mississippi by strong parents who gave her a strong sense of self. Early memories bring her back to backbreaking labor as sharecroppers, powerfully conveyed as “slavery by a gentler name.” Each poem unfolds harsh aspects of Black lives in the 20th century that led Hamer to her activism. Ekua’s vibrant collage and painted illustrations, for which she earned the John Steptoe New Talent Award, are as big, bold, and spirited as Fannie Lou Hamer, and together, the verbal and visual images pack an emotional punch.