Also American
AchievementJanuary 1964· politics

Fannie Lou Hamer Co-Founds National Women's Political Caucus and Runs for Senate

Fannie Lou Hamer of Sunflower County, Mississippi — evicted from her plantation for registering to vote — became the most powerful grassroots speaker of the civil rights movement. Her 1964 Democratic National Convention testimony reached millions of TV viewers and defined the moral stakes of voting rights.