The financial structure of Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC) made it dependent on loans and Hamer’s considerable fundraising skills. She had already suffered one nervous breakdown in her life related to the demands on her as poor black women trying to provide for her family and has a civil rights activist. Hamer had also suffered a brutal beating during her years as a civil rights activist organizing voter registration drives in Mississippi. Hamer decided the best way to deal with the FFC’s lack of operating capital had been extensive travel around the country raising donations. That strategy put enormous stress on her. She never learned to practice selfcare; she had been a selfless person who gave what little she had to others and neglected her own health and sometimes that of her family. The fundraising travel and the stress of FFC’s finances contributed to her early death at age 59. The FFC is a cautionary tale for activist passionate about advancing economic independence and food sovereignty for the oppressed.
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