Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist born in 1917 who experienced extreme racism and violence fighting for voting rights in Mississippi. In 1963, she and others were removed from a bus in Winona, Mississippi and beaten severely in a jail cell for attempting to register black voters. Despite this, Hamer continued her activism and in 1964 challenged an all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic National Convention as part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to represent black voters who had been prevented from voting. Her efforts helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

1. FANNIE LOU HAMERBY: KIEARA J

2. FANNIE LOU HAMER

3. BioWas born October 6, 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi,Died in 1977

4. Her ChildhoodShe was a granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children. At the age of six she began helping her parents in the cotton field, by the time she was 12 she dropped out of school to help fully support her family.Married another sharecropper named “Perry”.

5. Her StoryOn June 3, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights workers arrived in Winona, MS by bus. They were forced off the bus the guards proceeded to take her to a cell an told her to lay on the ground of the cell. They beat her until she couldn’t move. She was left bleeding an battered on the cell floor. She was later found by another civil rights worker who heard her screams, he to had been beaten.

6. The Movement In 1964, presidential elections were being held. In an effort to focus greater national attention on voting discrimination, civil rights groups created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This new party sent a delegation, which included Fannie Lou Hamer, to Atlantic City, where the Democratic Party was holding its presidential convention. Its purpose was to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation on the grounds that it didn't fairly represent all the people of Mississippi, since most black people hadn't been allowed to vote. A compromise was reached that gave voting and speaking rights to two delegates from the MFDP and seated the others as honored guests. The Democrats agreed that in the future no delegation would be seated from a state where anyone was illegally denied the vote. A year later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

7. Sourceshttp://www.beejae.com/hamer.htm