Who was Fannie Lou Hamer? That's why DNC speakers keep mentioning her

Several speakers at the Democratic National Convention mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist who gave a landmark speech at the 1964 convention.

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Hamer was a former sharecropper and chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a racially integrated group that challenged the seating of an all-white Mississippi delegation in the 1964 Democratic National Convention (DNC) caucus.

Her televised testimony before the Credentials Committee in Atlantic City, New Jersey, captivated the nation and shed light on the violence Hamer and others faced as they fought to enforce rights that were supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution.

Rev. Edwin King, Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine, co-founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, sit with the Michigan delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Photo via Getty Images

Hamer delivered her speech on August 22, 1964 – exactly 60 years before Kamala Harris would accept the Democratic nomination and become the first black woman and first person of South Asian descent to run as a major party’s presidential nominee.

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