“[When] they kicked me off the plantation,” Hamer reportedly told a fellow worker, “they set me free.” She added, “It’s the best thing that could happen. Now I can work for my people.”43

understand how the act of voting could not only change their lives but could also improve the lives of every Black American.

[Y]ou’ve never heard a room flying [like one] Fannie Lou set afire,” Norton explained.7 After Hamer spoke, Norton added, those who were listening “never needed to hear anyone else speak [on the issue] again.”8

Baker embraced the organizing tradition, resisted the emphasis on one charismatic leader, and called on activists to adopt a groupcentered model. Baker’s inclusive vision—one that created space for leaders regardless of age, gender, class, education, or race—informed her efforts to help launch SNCC with student activists at Shaw University.18

landowners in the South relied on cotton production—and the exploited labor of Black people—to maintain their economic power.

the end, regardless of a Black woman’s marriage status or the specific circumstances surrounding her pregnancy, they were vulnerable to state-sanctioned violence at the hands of racist white doctors and complicit hospital workers who deemed impoverished Black women “unfit” for reproduction.

Responding to those who insisted on gradualism—waiting for the “right” moment to secure Black rights and liberation—Hamer looked to history as her guide. “For three hundred years,” she explained, “we’ve given them [white people] time. And I’ve been tired so long,” she continued, “now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. We want a change in

about her leadership capabilities and political knowledge.43

She emphasized the need to center everyday people in this struggle—to “let some of the grassroot people have a chance,” as she explained it.32 Hamer recognized the need for a diverse group of leaders at the grassroots level as a necessary step in the fight for Black rights and freedom.