Educational Media Reviews Online

Though mostly known for her famous line, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Fannie Lou Hamer’s America paints a fuller picture of the late great civil rights leader’s life. It explores the life and times of Fannie Lou Hamer in her own words. Using speeches, interviews, and songs that Fannie Lou Hamer gave and performed during her time in the civil rights movement. We see her start with the history of Africans being brought to the United States, then during the course of the film details her humble beginnings growing up in rural Jim Crow Mississippi to her passing in 1977. The filmmakers used archival footage from Mrs. Hamer’s time and matched it to modern day stock footage of our time. Providing the viewer the parallels of her time and the times we are all currently living in today as Mrs. Hamer narrates. The parallels of her period and ours are so striking that this close to an hour documentary raises a question in audiences. In showing Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, are we living the America she fought for or to some degree the America she was fighting in?

Anyone with a short amount of time, who is interested in or studying the life of Fanny Lou Hamer or Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Women’s Rights will find this film to be exactly what they need. It is in her owns words, easy to follow, and succinct. This documentary is especially recommended for the academic disciplines in the social sciences, and humanities. It is also recommended for social or cultural organizations that have missions that deal with issues of social justice and history. This documentary showcases in the same space of a documentary like Gregory Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro, which was based off of the late great James Baldwin’s last unpublished book “Remember This House.”

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