Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer (October 6, 1917–March 14, 1977) was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi's "Freedom Summer" for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant champion of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Later activism

Hamer continued to work in Mississippi for the Freedom Democrats and for local civil rights causes. She ran for Congress in 1964 and 1965, and was eventually seated as a member of Mississippi's legitimate delegation to the Democratic National Convention of 1968, where she was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.

Related Topics:
Congress - 1965 - Democratic National Convention of 1968 - Vietnam War

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She continued to work on other projects, including grassroots-level Head Start programs, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign.

Related Topics:
Head Start - Poor People's Campaign

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Hamer died on March 14, 1977, in the Mound Bayou, Mississippi hospital after initially being refused entry to a "whites-only" hospital to treat her acute condition.

Related Topics:
March 14 - 1977 - Mound Bayou, Mississippi

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