Jerome Smith Looks at Bullet Holes in Fannie Lou Hamer’s Door

Fannie Lou Hamer was no stranger to intimidation and violence by white Mississippians. In the summer of 1962, Hamer was fired from her job as a bookkeeper at a plantation for trying to register to vote. She was forced to move out of her home on the plantation and moved in with some friends. Just days later, she found 16 bullet holes in the front door of the home where she was staying. A year after the 1962 shooting, Steve Schapiro captured the result of such violence when Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) activist Jerome Smith was inspecting bullet holes in Fannie Lou Hamer’s home in Ruleville, MS.