During the factory’s tenure in Atlanta, the African-American women workers repeatedly organized to fight for higher wages, better positions, and an end to discrimination based on race and gender. These efforts were a significant precursor to the activism that would come to define the civil rights movement.
Neithhotep may have been the first recorded female monarch in world history, circa 3,000 to 3200 BC. She is believed to have been married to either the first or second pharaoh of unified Egypt.
Sobekneferu is believed to be the first female Pharaoh to rule Egypt in her own right, to claim to full titles of a pharaoh, and is also the first woman listed in the Turin King List, an ancient papyrus scroll compiled during the reign of Rameses II in the 1200s BC of all the pharaohs that came before.
Merneith ruled Egypt circa 2950. She may also have been a regent for her son after the death of her husband.
Nitocris is a woman who may have ruled Egypt in the 22nd century BC, or who may have been a literary invention centuries later. According to Herodotus, she lured her brother’s murderers into a banquet hall and then killed them by diverting the waters of the Nile to flood the room.
Ward 7 representative for the Cleveland City Council for almost thirty years.
Civil rights activist and education advocate
1600s Ethiopian saint Walatta Petros was a revered religious leader who was a driving force preventing the Catholic colonization of her country and her church.
American poet
In 2006, poet Amanda Johnston founded Torch Literary Arts, based in Austin, Texas, with the aim of forming a creative space where Black women writers could showcase their work and foster a supportive community.