Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader.

She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant champion of civil rights.