Fannie Lou Hamer and the meaning of freedom

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vox's Jamil Smith talks with Keisha Blain, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America. They discuss the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper-turned-civil-rights-activist, whose speech about voting rights at the 1964 Democratic National Convention changed how the Democratic Party viewed Black activism. They talk about how Hamer's ideas influence movements for human rights and racial equity today. Host: Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith), Senior Correspondent, Vox Guest: Keisha Blain (@KeishaBlain), author; professor of history, University of Pittsburgh References: Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America by Keisha Blain (Beacon Press; 2021) Fannie Lou Hamer's speech at the DNC (August 22, 1964) American Experience: Freedom Summer (dir. Stanley Nelson. PBS; 2014) Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:56.6	Comparison for.com
1:00.0	What did a Mississippi sharecropper teach us about freedom?
1:06.2	I'm Jamil Smith, and I'm your host for Box Conversations.
1:11.7	We hear the term freedom bandied about rather loosely in this country.
1:21.7	It's one of those things people say they love, but are we really free?
1:26.2	In many instances, freedom feels more like America's consumer brand than one of its core
1:31.1	principles, mostly because we see those principles violated with regularity.
1:36.6	Fannie Lou Hamer is someone who understood this all too well.
1:40.2	And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk with Dr. Kisha Blaine.
1:43.7	Blaine is a historian and the author of the new Hamer biography until I am free.
1:50.1	In the book, which is part contemporary social commentary,
1:53.4	Blaine describes how Hamer was accustomed to seeing the same rights and freedoms technically
1:58.1	guaranteed to her as an American discarded because she was a black woman.
2:03.4	Hamer was fired from her job as a sharecropper for trying to register to vote.
	...

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