26

NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO FANNIE LOU HAMER. In 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested in Winona, Mississippi, after helping Black Americans register to vote. While in custody, she was brutally beaten by police and other prisoners under their direction. The injuries left her with lasting physical damage. Her crime? Demanding a right that America claimed its citizens already had. Hamer was a sharecropper who understood that the right to vote was about far more than casting a ballot. It was about having a voice in a country that had spent generations trying to keep Black people powerless. They threatened her. They attacked her. They tried to make an example of her. But she refused to be silent. She went on to challenge the political system that excluded Black Americans, speaking before the nation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention and exposing the violence and discrimination Black voters faced in Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer's story is a reminder that many of the rights people take for granted today were secured by people who paid an extraordinary price to demand them. They wanted her to be afraid. Instead, she made America listen. History must never forget her name. To keep these stories alive, we have uncovered and documented crimes against Black people that have remained unanswered. Get yours: savvypurchase.samcart.com/pr…