Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military.
Wilma Mankiller is honored and recognized as the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She is also the first woman elected as chief of a major Native tribe. She spent her remarkable life fighting for the rights of American Indians.
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. The gifted and popular performer dazzled audiences in the U.S. and abroad with her jazzy renditions of classical works.
As a poet, author, and lecturer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a household name in the nineteenth century. Not only was she the first African American woman to publish a short story, but she was also an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer that co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.
Susette La Flesche Tibbles, an Omaha woman, spent her entire life tirelessly campaigning for Native American rights as a speaker, activist, interpreter, and writer.
A marine biologist and nature writer, Rachel Carson catalyzed the global environmental movement with her 1962 book Silent Spring. Outlining the dangers of chemical pesticides, the book led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides and sparked the movement that ultimately led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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.” At the time, sixteen year old Lee was already a recognized suffragist and activist that would help to lead almost 10,000 people in the New York suffrage parade.
Dame Nellie Robinson, DC, MBE was a pioneer of education in Antigua who broke down class and colour barriers to help provide all children with access to education. She was the first woman to receive Antigua and Barbuda’s Order of the National Hero.
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).