
Fannie Lou Hamer: Civil Rights Activist and Founder of the Freedom Farm Cooperative
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 – 1977) was born into a sharecropping family in Mississippi and become a leader in civil rights. She established a cooperative farm to provide economic support to her community. Fannie Lou Hamer was born to a family of sharecroppers in 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi. She began picking cotton with her family at age 6. She was able to attend school sporadically and learned to read and write, but she began working full time by age 12. After marryin