Born: October 6, 1917, Montgomery County, MS

Education: Sunflower County elementary school

Died: March 14, 1977, Ruleville, MS

Documentaries often capture Mrs. Hamer singing “This Little Light of Mine” at the Democratic National Convention (1964). Cofounder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), she testified in a nationally televised hearing on its challenge for official seats. Such images depict the activism that underlay her induction to the National Women's Hall of Fame (1993).

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) recruited Hamer from a plantation timekeeping job to register black voters. “Nobody never come out into the country and talked to real farmers” before SNCC came, she stated. Yet “it was these kids what broke a lot of this down. They treated us like we were special and we loved ‘em... We trusted ‘em” (Jones-Brown, Frazier, and Brooks, 2014, p. 539).

Enlarging the trust, Hamer pursued blacks’ right to vote, for which she was shot at and beaten; engaged in electoral politics through MFDP; ran for Congress; cofounded the National Women's Political Caucus (1971); and established Freedom Farm (1969–74), a nonprofit venture to provide food, social services, educational assistance, and job training. Despite suffering with cancer during her final years, she remained active in civil, human, and women's rights causes. Indeed, she represented the long struggle for human dignity and social justice in America.