Women's History Month Featured Leader: Fannie Lou Hamer

In March, we’re featuring an influential woman every day in honor of Women’s History Month.
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Today we’re celebrating:

Fannie Lou Hamer

Voting and women’s rights activist, civil organizer, Civil Rights Movement Leader (1917 – 1977)
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• Became a voting rights activist after she attempted to vote in Mississippi in 1962 while working as a sharecropper
• While trying to register and vote, Hamer was extorted, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by police and white supremacists 
• Founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
• Gained national attention during the 1964 Democratic National Convention when the MFDP insisted on being seated with the all-white delegation