FANNIE LOU HAMER a Historical Time Line

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October 6, 1917 Fannie Lou Townsend is born in Montgomery County, Mississippi.

May 21, 1918 The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

February 14, 1920 The League of Women Voters is founded, with the goal of giving women a stronger role in public affairs.

May 2, 1927 In Buck v. Bell, by a vote of 8–1, the U.S. Supreme Court affirms the constitutionality of Virginia’s law allowing state-enforced sterilization. In 1962, while undergoing surgery to remove a small tumor, Hamer will receive a hysterectomy without her consent or prior knowledge.

1944 Fannie Lou Townsend marries Perry “Pap” Hamer.

May 17, 1954 In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional.

May 6, 1960 The Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed into law by President Eisenhower; it includes measures against discriminatory voting practices.

1963 Hamer finally succeeds in registering to vote. From June 9–12, she is arrested and brutally beaten while in police custody. 1964 Hamer runs for Congress in the Mississippi state Democratic primary.

On June 19, after an eighty-three-day filibuster, the U.S. Senate passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

On August 22, in a televised appearance, Hamer addresses the Democratic National Convention’s Credentials Committee about the problems she encountered in registration and her beating in jail. President Johnson calls a press conference at the same time as her speech to prevent her voice from being heard, but her speech is aired later by many television networks.

August 6, 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is signed by President Johnson, making it illegal to force would-be voters to pass literacy tests.

1967 Robert Clark, a Freedom Democrat, is elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. He is the first black person elected to the Mississippi legislature since Reconstruction.

1972 Fannie Lou Hamer is recognized in a unanimous resolution by the Mississippi House of Representatives praising her statewide and national contribution to civil rights. Carole Boston Weatherford composed her first poem in first grade and dictated it to her mother on the ride home from school. Since then, she has written numerous award-winning books for children, including Becoming Billie Holiday, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, which won a Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, and the Caldecott Honor Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, which won an NAACP Image Award. Carole earned a Master of Arts in publications design from the University of Baltimore and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She teaches at Fayetteville State University and lives in Highpoint, North Carolina.

Ekua Holmes is a fine artist whose work explores themes of family, relationships, hope, and faith. In 2013 she was named to the Boston Art Commission, which oversees public art projects on city property, and she provided the Google doodle illustration for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2015. Voice of Freedom is her picture-book debut. Ekua Holmes lives in Boston. Photo by Charles Walker Jr.