(1917 – 1977) Born a sharecropper in Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer became involved in the Civil Rights movement when she volunteered to attempt registering to vote in 1962 as part of the Black Panther party registration drive organized by SNCC. Despite losing her job and being brutally beaten, she continued in the movement, helping to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which transformed the 1964 Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City. Best known for her slogans, such as “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer later became involved in the National Council of Negro Women and the National Women’s Political Caucus during the 1970s.