The civil rights movement in the United States took place primarily in the 1960s. This movement had many strong faces ready to lead a movement of African Americans to achieve the rights they deserve. However, these are two of the less recognizable faces who helped shape the movement. Two women who helped change the way the civil rights movement played out were Ella Baker, who wanted to bring about change in the system, and Fannie Lou Hamer, well known for her actions to rally support. SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was created to prevent violence by black youth and to attempt to resolve the issue of segregation peacefully. Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker both had ideas about how to change the unacknowledged racist policies of some states at the time, and their journey to leadership roles within African American society intrigued both women. Fannie Lou Hamer, born in 1917, came from a family of sharecroppers, which was similar to slavery abolished around fifty years earlier. His father was a Baptist preacher, but put on a show as a bootlegger for his community. Her beginnings were reason enough for her to join any civil rights movement that arose years later. Sharecropping was a way for Southern whites to keep their foot firmly on the necks of African Americans, so that they could not play a major role in today's society. While her family survives on only "$300 a year," Fannie Lou Hamer described her life as "worse than difficult." Hamer began working at a young age and later realized that she had been tricked into working for a complicit plantation owner. She quickly learned the hard way that working hard for a white plant...... middle of paper ... gets them registered to vote and makes the changes needed for the South. Hamer's flamboyant nature made her, like Ella Baker, an easy target for Southern law enforcement, but that didn't stop her from trying to make a difference. Both women were extremely convinced that they had to be the change for African Americans. Whether this change happened in the South or across the United States, these women both wanted things to be different. They used their backgrounds and experiences to bring about change and spread the message about the need to make a difference in society. Their leadership roles might have been different across the African-American spectrum, but both women were well respected during their tenure at the top. They grew from their experiences and used them to their advantage to bring about the change they wanted to see..