In 1964, at the end of my first semester of college, I went to Mississippi for the civil rights movement and the Freedom Summer Project. I'd been very active in SNCC already, and I was also active in the emerging anti-war movement on campus.

The photo shows me playing the guitar for Fannie Lou Hamer – one of the great heroines of the civil rights movement – and some of her friends. Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper who became a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, fighting for dignity and the right to vote. In the civil rights movement, women played extraordinary leadership roles.

Returning from Mississippi, I took with me the lesson that you need to stand up for justice and help others in need – a lesson that resonated deeply with my Jewish beliefs. (Listen to more of her story on the video below)

Heather Booth playing guitar for Fannie Lou Hamer and others during the Freedom Summer Project in Mississippi, 1964. Photo by Wallace Roberts.

Heather Booth has been building and consulting with large-scale volunteer efforts for 40 years. In 1963, at Yad Vashem in Israel, she made a commitment that in the face of injustice, she would work for justice/tikkun olam. Booth was active in the women's movement, founding the first campus women's movement organization in 1965.

A renowned organizer and activist, Booth began her remarkable career at the height of the civil rights movement. As a student at the University of Chicago, Booth joined the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, in the campaign for Black voting rights, working along side Fannie Lou Hamer.

“Ms. Hamer had a moral center to her that not only guided her actions, but gave greater moral clarity to many of those around her,” Booth said. “When I arrived in Mississippi, our first stop was in Ruleville with Ms. Hamer. She gave a sense of her moral vision at every level of her life.”

When Booth later heard Dr. Martin Luther King say the way to civil rights was through union rights, Booth became a labor organizer.

In 1964, she founded the JANE Underground and later collaborated with several respected leaders such as Julian Bond and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Booth was the Founding Director, now President, of the Midwest Academy, which trains organizers, including some of the early NOW leaders.

Booth has directed and worked on numerous national campaigns, including the 2000 NAACP National Voter Fund, the Health Care Campaign, AFL-CIO, the Alliance for Citizenship (the leading coalition for immigration reform) among many others. In 1989, she directed the national March for Women's Lives. Booth was the founding Director and is now President of the Midwest Academy, a national center that trains leaders building citizen-based organizations.

Besides being a donor and supporter of the award-winning film, Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, Booth was also instrumental in the film being broadcast on PBS and WORLD Channel.