In 1964, less than 7% of the state’s Black population in Mississippi was registered to vote, despite the fact that nearly 40% of the state’s population was Black.

Hamer’s challenge of the segregated delegation couldn’t have come at a worse time for President Lyndon Johnson.

Locked at the time in a reelection campaign against right-wing conservative Barry Goldwater, Johnson feared losing Southern Democratic politicians and voters in the upcoming presidential election.

The fight in Mississippi erupted on the national stage when television networks broadcast Hamer’s Aug. 22, 1964, testimony before the Democratic Convention Credentials Committee, which determined who was qualified to serve as a state delegate. In her bid to get the committee to recognize her political party, Hamer talked about the second-class, often violent, treatment afforded Black people.

“All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens,” she said.

To prevent further testimony from Hamer that would further incense Southern Democrats, Johnson immediately held an impromptu press conference that would divert network television attention away from Hamer.

Despite Johnson’s tactics, Hamer’s story still spread throughout the nation in part because of a series of rallies held in Northern cities, including the one in Harlem.

“The truth is the only thing going to free us,” Hamer said during the speech in Harlem. “When I was testifying before the Credentials Committee, I was cut off because they hate to see what they been knowing all the time, and that’s the truth.”

Born on Oct. 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, Hamer was the 20th and last child of sharecroppers Lou Ella and James Townsend. She began picking cotton at the age of 6, and she would be forced to leave school shortly afterward to help her family eke out a living.

“We would work 10 and 11 hours a day for three lousy dollars,” Hamer once said.

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