When Matilda J. Clerk wanted to study medicine at Achimota College, her father had to petition the head of the British colonial government, the Governor of the Gold Coast, for a special waiver. She became the first Ghanaian woman with a western medical degree, and she was the only candidate of any gender to pass the first preliminary medical baccalaureate examinations in 1942.
Born enslaved, as an adult free woman Hester Lane built her own business and used her success to buy other people out of slavery, as well as working tirelessly as a fundraiser for different organisations.
Olympic champion track and field athlete
American astrophysicist and writer
Lt. Cmdr. Brenda Robinson became the first Black woman to become a U.S. Navy naval aviator when she earned her Wings of Gold in 1980.
Beulah Lee Sampson Flowers was an African-American educator, community leader, political activist, and businesswoman who was also a mentor to Maya Angelou.
Rose Marie Hinton McCoy broke into the white, male-dominated music business in the early 1950s to become a highly sought-after songwriter whose career lasted over six decades.
Chisaraokwu Asomugha is a Los Angeles-based Igbo American transdisciplinary poet, writer, visual/performance artist, scholar, and health futurist
Jamaican journalist and activist
Florence Griffith Joyner, better known as Flo Jo, was one of the fastest women in the world in the 1980s, and she had the medals and records to prove it.