Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, as the youngest of 20 children in a sharecropping family. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, Hamer began working in the cotton fields at a very young age, which shaped her understanding of the harsh realities faced by African Americans in the South. By the time she was just 12 years old, she had dropped out of school to contribute to her family's income, which left her with limited educational opportunities but instilled a strong work ethic that would carry into her adult life.
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