Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

After losing a dramatic civil rights showdown with President Lyndon B. Johnson, Fannie Lou Hamer thought her work was in vain. To refuel her for the fight, her employer sent her on a trip to Africa.

There, resting her head on the back of a bathtub, Hamer marveled at how far God had brought her since her days picking cotton on a Mississippi plantation. Who would ever have thought that she would find herself halfway around the world relaxing in a beach bungalow on a sprawling estate in Guinea? 

Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted her bath. “Fannie!” called the voice on the other side of the door. “The president is here. Can you come?” 

Hamer let out a laugh. “Yeah right! Tell His Excellence that I’ll see him in a couple of hours. I’m having my bath, darling.” 

But the ...

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Fannie Lou Hamer had gone from sharecropper to civil rights activist. But on June 9, 1963, that decision almost cost her her life.

Hamer and some fellow activists were on a bus heading home when they stopped for food in Winona, Mississippi. The restaurant unlawfully refused them service. Instead, the police inside the restaurant unjustly arrested Hamer and four of her coworkers.

Hamer was shocked. “Why was I arrested?” she asked. The officers responded with jeers and racial slurs as they drove past the city jail and straight to the county jail. Out there, Hamer realized, “Wasn’t nobody gon’ hear us.”

Once at the jail, the officers shoved four of the five women into cell blocks, keeping one of the activists, June Johnson, wit...

It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)

Fannie Lou Hamer suffered inconceivable injustices. She was born into generational poverty, cheated out of wages, coerced by doctors into a hysterectomy against her will—the list goes on and on.

Hamer longed to fight against these injustices. But there were two major problems. First, speaking out against injustice in Mississippi in the mid-1960s often got you killed. Second, Hamer was taught to “let go and let God” handle your problems. If she was going to do more than that, it was going to take a sign from God. And on a summer night in 1962, that’s exactly what she got.

“Stop waiting on a sign from God!” preached James Bevel from the pulpit. 

Upon hearing those words, Hamer’s hand stilled. Her paper fan—and the sweltering humidity—were briefly forgotten as she leaned in to hear what the preacher had to say. 

Reverend Bevel’s goal was to stir fellow Christians to register to vote...

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)

I’ve never met a white friend who knows Fannie Lou Hamer’s story. And I’ve never met a black friend who doesn’t. Over the next four weeks, we’ll study how this remarkable sharecropper-turned-activist followed Jesus in her work and extract lessons for our own jobs today. Let’s begin by parachuting into one of the most dramatic scenes of her life.

Election Day 1964 was three months away, but President Lyndon B. Johnson wasn’t worried about his Republican opponent. The greatest threat to his presidency was Fannie Lou Hamer testifying at the Democratic National Convention, AKA the DNC.

For weeks, Johnson did everything he could to stop her. He had the FBI tap her phones and pressured DNC leaders behind the scenes. But it was no use. On August 22, the DNC decided America needed to hear Hamer’s testimony.

At 3:00 p.m., Hamer took the stand, and the nation tuned in ...