Finding your inner hero

Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State, shares a poignant memory that shaped her understanding of courage and heroism. As a teenager, she met Fannie Lou Hamer, a woman whose bold defiance of societal limitations left an indelible mark. Through Ms. Hamer’s story, we are reminded that heroes don’t arrive ready-made—they are forged in the fire of challenges, determination, and conviction.

“I will never forget meeting a woman named Fannie Lou Hamer when I was a teenager. She came to the University of Denver to speak to my father's class. She was not sophisticated in the way we think of it, yet so compelling that I remember the power of her message even today. In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer refused to listen to those who told her that a sharecropper with a sixth-grade education could not, or should not, launch a challenge that would dismantle the racist infrastructure of Mississippi's Democratic Party. She did it anyway.

“And Ms. Hamer reminds us that heroes are not born -- they are made; and they often come from unlikely places. There are countless other everyday heroes whose deeds are less dramatic but no less important.”

_{Source: Rice, Condoleezza. Stanford University. Stanford, California. 16 June 2002. Commencement Address.}