Amelia Boyton. Fannie Lou Hamer. Diane Nash. Rita Schwerner. Annie Lee Cooper. Coretta Scott King. Viola Liuzzo. In the early 1960s, these courageous women activists joined Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Rev. C.T. Vivian, Rev. Andrew Young and thousands of others in the tumultuous and often violent struggle for voting rights for […]
Author: Anne Rooney
Anne Rooney is a nurse, international health care consultant, and writer with a strong interest in social justice, women’s issues and improving health care in developing countries. She is based in the Chicago area.
50 Years Ago Today, Fannie Lou Hamer Spoke Out for Freedom
On August 22, 1964, as the Mississippi Summer Freedom Project (Freedom Summer) was well into its third month of voter registration drives among African American citizens in Mississippi, civil rights activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer riveted onlookers with her speech to the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. I […]