Millions of light-years away, millions of years ago, a star exploded. In this violent process, it ejected incredible amounts of mass, including carbon, nitrogen and oxygen—the building blocks of life.

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the 20th child of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend, sharecroppers east of the Mississippi Delta. She first joined her family in the cotton fields at the age of six.