Fannie Lou Hamer

The Nineteenth Amendment granted white American women the right to vote, but it did not remove racist Jim Crow laws that sought to obstruct African American civil rights through targeted literacy tests and other barriers. In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer and seventeen other aspiring Black voters went to the courthouse in Indianola, Mississippi, to register. When Hamer’s white employer and landlord learned of her action, he threatened to fire her and evict her if she did not retract her registration. She refused to do so, and she and her family were put out of their home.

In 1964, Hamer founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and gained national attention for her eloquent, televised testimony before the credentials committee of the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Her speech galvanized President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Only then were African Americans finally guaranteed the right to vote without impediment.