For Women’s History Month, Honoring Freedom Fighters

As we all continue to reflect daily on democracy, two new films about powerful women – activist Fanny Lou Hamer and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi –?illuminate how fragile our political system can be and the impact one person can have on it.?

Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper turned civil rights advocate who was born in Sunflower County, Mississippi in 1917, led the Mississippi Freedom Party and Freedom Farms during Freedom Summer in 1964. Over time, she successfully pushed Mississippi to open up voting to Black people, transforming local, state and national politics, a process made a little easier after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.?She famously said, “And until I am free, you are not free, either.” Over time, she successfully pushed Mississippi to open up voting to Black people, transforming local, state and national politics, a process made a little easier after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

In the 1960s and 70s, Fannie Lou Hamer fought for the rights of all Americans to be treated like human beings, rights that remain challenged to this day. Through rare footage and recordings, some not seen or heard in half a century, Hamer tells her story — and that of America — more than four decades after her death, in Fannie Lou Hamer’s America: An America ReFramed Special,?produced by Hamer’s great-niece Monica Land and Selena Lauterer and directed by Joy Davenport. The captivating portrait of one of the civil rights era’s preeminent icons through her own speeches, interviews and songs follows Hamer’s life from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the halls of Congress

As the filmmaker Davenport said, “Fannie Lou Hamer put her life on the line working to ensure that America lived up to its promise. She urged us to look directly at the truth of this country. In the decades since her death, we’ve collectively looked away, but to a sick and tired nation that yearns for the American dream, her message remains painfully clear: It’s time to wake up.”

The film airs at a time when Black women such as Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris, LaTosha Brown, Shirley Weber and Tahesha Way, among others, are being acknowledged for their work at the forefront of the fight for voting rights amidst ongoing voter suppression efforts targeting citizens of color.

As states approach the 2022?primaries and midterm elections, it is imperative for the survival of our democracy that voting rights and the security of our elections remain a top priority on the state and federal levels.?Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic nomination to the Supreme Court comes at a critical time when the Court is examining such key constitutional rights.

And as the country navigates myriad crises and questions about our future, a new documentary from FRONTLINE, Pelosi’s Power, offers a window into Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, and how she has used her power across three decades and handled challenges to her leadership and to American democracy. With revelatory interviews, the documentary is an unprecedented look at who she is, what drives her, and why she believes democracy itself is what’s now at stake.

Watch Fannie Lou Hamer’s America: An America ReFramed Special now. The film, which aired on PBS and GBH WORLD, now streams on worldchannel.org, WORLD Channel’s YouTube channel and on the PBS Video App.

FRONTLINE’s Pelosi’s Power will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS Video App starting March 22 at 7/6c. It will premiere on GBH 2 and PBS stations (check local listings) and on YouTube at 9/8c. Dozens of interviews with sources from the making of Pelosi’s Power will be published on FRONTLINE’s website as part of The FRONTLINE Transparency Project.

Beginning on Monday, March 21, watch GBH WORLD’s live coverage of the confirmation hearings for Judge Kedanji Brown Jackson here.

See more Women’s History Month offerings here from GBH.