Hamer and her husband wanted very much to start a family but in 1961, Hamer received a hysterectomy by a white doctor without her consent while undergoing surgery to remove a uterine tumor. Forced sterilization was a common method of population control in Mississippi that targeted poor, African-American women. Members of the Black community called the procedure a "Mississippi appendectomy". The Hamers later raised two girls they adopted. One died of internal hemorrhaging after she was denied admission to the local hospital because of her mother's activism.