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.

Almost 60 years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer took the podium at the Democratic National Convention and made a speech that challenged the party for its failure to support Black Americans' right to vote.