Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the 20th child of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend, sharecroppers east of the Mississippi Delta. She first joined her family in the cotton fields at the age of six.

It wasn’t called voter suppression back then, but civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer knew exactly how white authorities in Mississippi felt about Black people voting in the 1960s.

Fannie Lou Hamer stood before the Democratic National Convention (DNC). She delivered one of the most searing indictments of American democracy. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of ...

Former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer's Congressional testimony is so powerful that President Johnson calls an impromptu press conference to get her off the air. But his plan backfires.

Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist who used singing to promote community and fight for voting rights. Hamer's life and legacy are celebrated in the new Kentucky Opera production ...

E. Faye Butler is one of those performers who makes acting and singing look as natural as breathing. As strong-willed civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, Butler knows she has ...