Though over 400 women served in the Civil War posing as male soldiers, Williams was the first African American woman to enlist and the only documented woman to serve in the United States Army, while disguised as a man, during the Indian Wars. Williams is also the only known female Buffalo Soldier.
Civil rights leader who pioneered efforts to integrate her state’s schools, housing, and public accommodations and to pass civil rights legislation enforcing such integration.
Suffragist and the second woman to join the faculty of Tuskegee University.
Juanita Jewel Craft was an American civil rights advocate and politician.
Abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Maria W. Stewart was one of the first women of any race to speak in public in the United States. She was also the first Black American woman to write and publish a political manifesto.
In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry made history as the first African American woman to have a show produced on Broadway—A Raisin in the Sun. As a playwright, feminist, and racial justice activist, Hansberry never shied away from tough topics during her short and extraordinary life. an American artists. Her commitment to racial justice inspired countless more.
Born to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, Blackwell rose from humble beginnings to become one of many unsung Black female heroines of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Harlem Renaissance poet, critic, journalist, and activist
Educator and activist Maria Louise Baldwin belonged to a generation of Bostonian Black women highly connected to circles of educated Black and White activists.
Civil rights icon and African American contralto, who had a ground-breaking career in classical music from the mid-1920s through the late 1950s.