Women's History Month Spotlight: Fannie Lou Hamer

March is National Women's History Month!  Time to shine the spotlight on a few of my favorite ladybugs.  One of my all-time favorite ladies in history is Fannie Lou Hamer.  It really bothers me that people don't know her.  Her story is amazing.  As my momma says...she was something else.

About Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 - 1977)

• Born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, she was the granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children.
• At age six, she began helping her parents in the cotton fields.

• By the time she was twelve, she was forced to drop out of school and work full time to help support her family.
• In 1962, she'd had enough of sharecropping. Leaving her house in Ruleville, MS she and 17 others took a bus to the courthouse in Indianola, the county seat, to register to vote.
• After being jailed and brutally beaten for trying to vote, she
  began working on welfare and voter registration programs for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

• Her most famous quote: "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
• She became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity.
• Prior to her death, she was inducted into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, as an honorary member.