Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention was so powerful that President Lyndon B. Johnson called an impromptu press conference to get her off the air. Watch the full "Freedom Summer" doc streaming free: http://to.pbs.org/1oKMmwS | American Experience | PBS

On this day in 1977, Fannie Lou Hamer passed away at the age of 59. The activist, organizer, and leader is remembered for her work in the civil and voting rights movements. You can learn more about Hamer in this clip from She the People: Votes for Women. https://bit.ly/31Mo3bR #WomenDoingTheWork | Smithsonian Channel

She Didn't Know She Could Vote Until Age 44 The incredible true story of Fannie Lou Hamer - a Mississippi sharecropper who learned she could vote at 44, survived 16 bullets and a brutal jail beating, then gave a speech so powerful it terrified a U.S. President. Her testimony helped pass the Voting Rights Act and changed America forever. #FannieLouHamer #VotingRights #CivilRights #BlackHistory #HiddenHistory #MississippiFreedomDemocraticParty #DemocraticConvention #ViralHistory #AmericanHistory #

#BlackHistoryNow is about lifting as we climb. 🗳️ Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the most powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements. She led voting drives, helped organize Freedom Summer, and co-founded both the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women’s Political Caucus. To learn more about Hamer's harrowing fight for voting rights, check out this clip from She the People: Votes for Women. http://bit.ly/31Mo3bR #BlackHistoryMatters | Smithsonian Channel

Fannie Lou Hamer gripped the nation with her televised testimony of being forced from her home and brutally beaten (suffering permanent kidney damage) for attempting to exercise her constitutional right to vote. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings?” she asked the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hamer had arrived in Atlantic Ci