Selma Burke discovered her love for sculpture as a young child and followed her passion to Harlem Renaissance New York, Parisian art studios, and even the White House.

Though a high school teacher discouraged her from writing because of her poor spelling, Suzan-Lori Parks went on to become one of the most successful playwrights in the United States.

Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer lived her entire life in Virginia, where she tended her garden, worked as a librarian and teacher, hosted luminaries of Black intellectual and cultural life, and fought for equal rights for African Americans. 

Jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott was not only the first African-American woman to host her own television show, but she also bravely stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood studio machine.

On May 2, 1963, 9 year old Audrey Faye Hendricks became the youngest known person arrested during the Civil Rights Movement. 

Joyce Parrish O'Neal is a Civil Rights activist, social worker, and the first African American elected to the Alabama State Personnel Board.

Lillian D. Wald helped to bring health care to the residents of New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century.

As a life-long Detroiter, and one of the first Muslim-Americans, as well as the first Palestinian-American woman, ever elected to the United States Congress, Tlaib advocates for issues that affect the working-class.

An educator, translator, and clubwoman, Lopez helped win the vote for Californian women with her oratory and the writings she translated into Spanish.

Kamala D. Harris became the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first person of Asian-American descent to become the Vice-President Elect of the United States of America.

Amanda Blackhorse is a member of the Navajo, a social worker, and the plaintiff in Blackhorse et al v. Pro-Football Inc.

In 1870, 70-year-old Louisa Ann Swain became the first woman to legally cast a ballot in a general election since 1807.

Considered the Guardian of Heron Indian Cemetery, her appearance made her the third woman, and the first Native American, to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court.

Susette La Flesche Tibbles, an Omaha woman, spent her entire life tirelessly campaigning for Native American rights as a speaker, activist, interpreter, and writer. 

At age eleven, Malala Yousafzai was already advocating for the rights of women and girls.

Queen Lili‘uokalani was the last sovereign monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the second woman, and first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was the first African American woman to publish a short story and was also an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer.

In a 1912 New York Times article, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was regarded as “the symbol of the new era, when all women will be free and unhampered.”

Motion picture star Florence Lawrence invented the turn signal and brake signal for vehicles.