Fannie Lou Hamer, Born in 1917

On 6 October 1917, leading civil rights and women's rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi. The youngest of 20 children, in 1961 Hamer became one of tens of thousands of mostly Black and other women of colour to be sterilised without her knowledge or consent, when a white doctor gave her a hysterectomy while she was supposed to be having minor surgery. Hamer (née Townsend) defied sackings, assassination attempts, arrests and beatings from employers, white supremacists and the police and registered to vote. She then became highly active in the civil rights movement, helping encourage thousands of other Black people across the South to register to vote as well. In 1969 she also founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative, an agricultural collective, to provide jobs and food to empower poor Black farmers and sharecroppers. Later in life she remained active, opposing the Vietnam war and advocating for the poor until her early death aged 59.

Fannie Lou Hamer born - WCH | Stories

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