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鈥淚s this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hook because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?鈥� 鈥� Fannie Lou Hamer

Here in New Mexico, we just finished our primary elections with nearly 25% of registered New Mexicans participating in the election. Looking at numbers like that, it makes me think about how lucky we are to have the right to vote. Obviously, this didn鈥檛 come easy for many people living in the United States.

The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, a landmark federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting not just for Black people but for all minority groups. All of us who went to school know the top-tier people who spearheaded the Voting Rights Act: Martin Luther King Jr., James Lewis, Malcolm X and Angela Davis. There were many on the front end of pushing for the Voting Rights Act, but there are others who had big roles in getting the act established, and one of them is Fannie Lou Hamer.

Her story is told by Kate Clifford Larson in 鈥淲alk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer.鈥�

Hamer was an impoverished plantation bookkeeper born in 1917. In 1962, she attended a voter registration meeting hosted by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

After that meeting, she attempted to register to vote. Once her landlord heard about her trying to register, she was fired and evicted from her home. In 1963, Hamer and a group of others from SNCC were arrested at a rest stop where she was jailed, beaten within inches of her life and sexually assaulted.

Hamer ended up co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, she delivered a powerful speech that detailed the violence toward Black people in Mississippi.

Her speech was so moving that it terrified Lyndon B. Johnson, so he attempted to have a press conference that would force the national TV networks to cut away from her broadcast. His attempt failed and all of America (to their horror) heard the stories of the violence in Mississippi. This brought attention and pressure to LBJ and the Democratic Party 鈥� so much so that they pushed the Voting Rights Act through in 1965.

Hamer was well-known for so many things, including starting schools in churches, barber shops, etc. that taught people how to read and then pass the onerous civics questions in order to register. She was also known for an incredible voice. Everywhere she went, she did it singing. Her signature song was 鈥淭his little light of mine, I鈥檓 going to let it shine.鈥�

Every time I go to cast my ballot, I can鈥檛 help but think of the people who lost their lives just to vote. We cannot ever take voting for granted. In order to honor those whose shoulders we stand on, the least that we can do is read their stories and vote.

Deborah Condit is the owner of Books on the Bosque, 6261 Riverside Plaza Lane, Suite A-2 or at .