Fannie Lou Hamer, born in Mississippi in 1917, was a prominent civil rights activist and leader. She was a sharecropper who was fired from her job on a plantation after attempting to register to vote. Hamer went on to dedicate her life to fighting for voting rights, desegregation, and economic justice for Black Americans. She co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the state’s all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer’s powerful testimony about the violence and discrimination she and fellow Black Americans faced in the South helped secure voting rights for people of color in the United States. Despite facing intimidation and violence throughout her life, Hamer continued to be a fearless advocate for civil rights until her death in 1977. She remains an important figure in the struggle for racial justice and equality.