Her effort paved the way for other Black leaders to run for office. Although she didn’t win, she said, “I’m showing the people that a negro can run for office.” Disillusioned by Southern Democrats who had filibustered the Civil Rights Act to prevent its passage and fed up with false representation - all of the Mississippi federal legislators in 1964 were white - she ran for delegate that year as a MFDP candidate against a white incumbent who had been elected 12 times in a majority Black district. In the summer of 1965, Hamer also worked to change the face of politicians by helping to lay the foundation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Nationally, by the end of 1965, more than 250,000 Black people were registered to vote. In 1964, just 6.7% of eligible Black Mississippians were registered to vote. The following year, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which made illegal all of the barriers and intimidation tactics used against potential Black and low-income voters, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, questionnaires, and the threat of violence. The activism and the violence of the summer pushed the federal government to act and sparked a national movement. And volunteers established 41 Freedom Schools that served 3,000 Black students throughout the state. By the end of the summer, 17,000 Black residents had attempted to register (though local registrars ultimately accepted only 1,600 completed applications). In order to register voters, volunteers canvassed neighborhoods where eligible yet unregistered Black citizens lived, going door to door talking about the power of the vote. The Freedom Summer lasted only 10 weeks, but in that time, those involved helped alter the state’s political, educational, and social landscape. These activists also sought to establish Freedom Schools for Black students and community-driven education centered on Black life and culture, and to challenge the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation at the Democratic National Convention. Their mission was to register Black Mississippians who routinely faced violence, intimidation, poll taxes, and literacy tests when they attempted to register to vote. This June marks the 55th anniversary of the Freedom Summer, when more than 700 college students - a group whose average age was 21 - traveled mostly from the North to Mississippi to work with local Black-led organizations to support their civil rights work. This group, made up of the Freedom Summer volunteers, influenced a turning point in American activism and politics, transforming both the way we think about the right to vote and our understanding of the power of youth organizing. In 1964, under the tall green branches of a pecan tree behind her two-bedroom house, activist and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer met with students and activists from across the country to strategize their efforts for Black enfranchisement and liberation.
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