at home and abroad to build social bridges and encourage economic justice for all people. A MacArthur Fellow, she has educated and inspired hundreds of audiences the world over through her theatrical performances, books, poetry readings and speeches. For more than three decades, Billie Jean has shared with the world the life story of human rights activist and Mississippi sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer. In her moving performances of the highly acclaimed one-woman play – Fannie Lou Hamer: This Little Light – and in her efforts to give voice to the disenfranchised people of the rural Deep South and America, Billie Jean inspires change and creates new understandings in the spirit of Ms. Hamer. She has given more than 800 performances on four continents.