Reposted from @the.house.of.roushey Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She was the youngest of 20 children and as early as 6 years old, was expected to help her family, who worked as sharecroppers on a plantation.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Fast forward to 1962 when Fannie Lou Hamer got involved in politics. Her passion was civil rights, specifically voter rights which came from first-hand experience with the registration process. She learned of her right to vote and traveled to a nearby town to register. The process, designed to suppress the vote of African Americans, was difficult to pass. When she returned home, her boss insisted that she withdraw her registration and fired her when she refused.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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From this point on, she experienced threats and attacks on her life by white supremacists. At one point, she was forced to leave her family and stay with a friend in another town in order to stay safe. And still, she continued to pursue her right to vote, taking the literacy test 3x's until she passed.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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As soon as she would overcome one hurdle, she realized that the county had imposed other laws to suppress her vote. And yet, she continued to persist.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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"In 1964, Hamer helped co-found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), in an effort to prevent the regional all-white Democratic party's attempts to stifle African-American voices, and to ensure there was a party for all people that did not stand for any form of exploitation and discrimination (especially towards minorities)."⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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As I read about Fannie Lou Hamer's fight for her right to vote, I was amazed at the parallel's within our current system. Our freedom is linked, whether it directly impacts us or not. Thank you Fannie Lou Hamer for your legacy of persistence and resistance. (excerpt from Wikipedia) ... See MoreSee Less