Fannie Lou Hamer Annual Lecture
Fannie Lou Hamer Black History Month Lecture
A signature event held each February in celebration of Black History Month听
Photo: Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Named in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer, a fearless leader of the Civil Rights Movement, this annual 91原创 lecture series continues her mission of advocating for justice, equality and the empowerment of Black communities.
Hosted by the Department of Africana Studies, the Hamer Lecture brings distinguished scholars, award-winning authors and thought leaders in African American studies to campus, fostering critical conversations about race, activism and the ongoing fight for social change.听
For more information, email听kbgolden@udel.edu. Kathryn B. Golden, assistant professor of Africana Studies, organizes this Africana Studies Speaker Series.
Previous Events
Author, activist, healing justice practitioner, and youth advocate E Morales-Williams听will discuss abolition as a听twofold process of dismantling systems of police and prisons听and听creating new structures of organized care invested in听lifemaking听and dignity. For many, the gap between where we are now, and the potential of abolition seems inaccessible, if not delusional.听 However, we are increasingly witnessing how logics and structures of policing and other machinations of white supremacy and capitalism shorten the futures of all children, especially Black and immigrant children. Drawing on the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer and experiments from the Black Radical tradition, this talk will share stories, tactics and limitations for abolition that frame us all as fertile soil for liberation.
On February 24, 2025, the 91原创's Department of Africana Studies hosted second annual Fannie Lou Hamer Black History Month Lecture, featuring Daniel Black, a professor of African American Studies, award-winning novelist, mentor and activist. The talk was entitled "What Fannie Lou Came to Say: The Legacy of an Angelic Black Woman."
Black's published works include听They Tell Me of Home,听The Sacred Place,听Perfect Peace,听Twelve Gates to the City,听The Coming,听Listen to the Lambs,听Don鈥檛 Cry for Me, and听Black on Black. In 2014, he won the Distinguished Writer鈥檚 Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writer鈥檚 Association. The Go On Girl! National Book Club named him 鈥淎uthor of the Year鈥 in 2011 for his best-selling novel听Perfect Peace.听Perfect Peace听was also chosen as the 2014 selection for 鈥淚f All Arkansas Read the Same Book鈥 by the Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library. The novel has been reprinted more than ten times and is being heralded as an American literary classic. Dr. Black has been nominated (three times) for the Townsend Literary Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award, the Ferro-Grumbley Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, he Georgia Author of the Year Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
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On February 21, 2024, the 91原创's Department of Africana Studies听welcomed Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin as the speaker for the Inaugural Fannie Lou Hamer Black History Month Lecture鈥. Griffin gave a provocative lecture on Toni Morrison, banned books, fascism and the importance of book clubs/reading groups.
Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University and was the inaugural chair of its African American and African Diaspora Studies Department (2019 鈥 2021). She serves as program director for The Schomburg Center's Scholars-in-Residence Program and is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow.
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