1953 – Fannie Lou Hamer Registers to Vote

On June 8, 1953, Fannie Lou Hamer made her first attempt to register to vote at the Indianola Courthouse in Mississippi. A sharecropper and activist, Hamer faced intense racial intimidation and threats for exercising this basic right. Her attempt was part of a broader movement to challenge the Jim Crow laws that systematically disenfranchised Black Americans in the South. Hamer would later become a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and a national voice in the fight for voting rights. Her iconic declaration, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” galvanized many during the Civil Rights era. This date marks the beginning of her public resistance to voter suppression and a turning point in the grassroots movement to ensure Black political representation in the U.S.