Through her work with various local and national organizations, Anna Arnold Hedgeman always fought for equal opportunity and respect, particularly for African American women. Throughout her long life, Hedgeman advocated for civil rights, education, social justice, poverty relief, and women.
Journalist, politician, and civil servant, Oveta Culp Hobby worked to better her community and her country throughout her lifetime. She is best known for serving as the director of the Women’s Army Corps and as the first secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Hajjah Rangkayo Rasuna Said was a major figure in Indonesia’s struggle for independence against the country’s Dutch colonisers.
Said was politically active from a very young age, and founded a political party – the Indonesian Muslim Association (PERMI) – in her early 20s.
An electrifying speaker who delivered speeches “like lightning during the day” according to one biography, her challenge to Dutch colonial authorities earned her the nickname Lioness. The Dutch often halted her speeches, and even imprisoned her in 1932 for 14 months.
When the Japanese invaded Indonesia during World War II in 1942, Said joined a pro-Japanese organisation, but used it to continue her independence activities.
After the Japanese were defeated, the Dutch returned to try to reimpose their control, initially with British help, and a brutal four-year conflict began, until the Dutch finally recognised Indonesian sovereignty in 1949.
Said was declared a National Hero of Indonesia by president Suharto in 1974. One of Jakarta’s main arteries is named for her (Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said) and Padang, West Sumatra.
Gwendolyn Margaret Lizarraga, MBE was a Belizean businesswoman, women’s rights activist and politician who was the first woman elected to the British Honduras Legislative Assembly (now the Belize House of Representatives) and the first woman to serve as a government minister in British Honduras (now Belize).
Agontimé was a queen of Dahomey in the early 1800s, one of multiple wives of King Agonglo.
Savka Dabčević-Kučar was one of the most influential Croatian female politicians during the Communist period, particularly during the Croatian Spring. In 1967 she became the President of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, one of eight constituent republics and autonomous provinces of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, making her the first female head of government of a political entity in Europe. She was deposed in 1971, but returned to politics in the early 1990s during the early days of Croatian independence as the leader of the Coalition of People’s Accord and the Croatian People’s Party.
Radha Poonoosamy was a Mauritian politician who served as the country’s first female cabinet minister and was a member of the executive committee of the African National Congress (ANC).
Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio is a Colombian politician, former senator and anti-corruption activist, particularly political corruption.
Vida Ognjenović is a Serbian theater director, writer, professor and diplomat.
When she was elected mayor of Freetown in May 2018 (winning almost 60% of the votes), Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr was the city’s first female mayor in nearly 40 years.
Aki-Sawyerr decided to run for mayor after overseeing Operation Clean Freetown, a government initiative that was part of a large post-Ebola recovery effort that began in 2016. The project’s goal was to “[reduce] the risk of epidemics by improving solid waste management in the city.”
“I came face to face with how bad things were” in Freetown, she later said. “I decided I had to run.”
Continuing this work in office, her first priority was to identify the locations with the most egregiously clogged gutters that were missed in Operation Clean Freetown and have them cleared to enable water flow.
While earning her bachelor’s degree in Economics at Fourah Bay College, Aki-Sawyerr was active with AIESEC (the International Association of Students in Economics and Management) and became the first African on the organisation’s Brussels-based International Exchange Committee in 1988.
Aki-Sawyerr’s work during Sierra Leone’s Ebola crisis was recognized with an Ebola Gold Medal by Ernest Bai Koroma in December 2015. In January 2016, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.