1960s to 1970
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)
Fannie Lous Hamer was a persistent activist and leader who recently received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden. Hamer was born in Mississippi in 1917 and journeyed across the South advocating for women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, democracy and Black people’s economic freedom. Hamer organized within her community and built political power asking, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?”
She was the vice chair for the Freedom Democratic Party, the co-founder of National Women’s Political Caucus and an organizer for the Mississippi Freedom Summer. Her impact and the strength of her convictions influenced the U.S. government and the Civil Rights Movement. Her powerful words are an inspiration and must not be silenced in America’s current war on Black history. — Kayla Smernoff
Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005)
Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to the House of Representatives in 1968. She was also the first to run for president. (Library of Congress/Creative Commons)
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm is revered by people everywhere. She is not only the first African American woman to serve in Congress in 1968, but also the first woman and African American to seek a major party nomination to run for president of the United States in 1972. Chisholm’s legacy is one that leaders today of any background can look to for inspiration.
The daughter of immigrants from Guyana and Barbados, Chisholm earned a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and master’s early childhood education from Columbia University in 1951. From then on, she worked tirelessly championing both racial and gender equity within education but also throughout society. “I will fight until I can’t fight anymore,” she said. “I don’t mind the challenge.”
“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
Her unwavering demand pushed the women’s rights movement to go beyond fighting only for the rights of some. She fought tirelessly within government to represent the voice of the Black community while opening the floodgates of possibility for Black women around the world. — Jordyn Britton
