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.
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.
Mama Adame was a ruler, known as a mansa, of the village of Bakindiki in Niumi Bato in the Kingdom of Niumi, in what is now The Gambia.
Cataract surgery pioneer Patricia Bath was the first African-American to complete a residency in ophthalmology, after obtaining her MD at Howard University and her fellowship in ophthalmology at Columbia University.
Nwanyeruwa was an Igbo woman living in colonial Nigeria known for her role in the Women’s War against taxation from November 1929 to January 1930.
Alberta Hunter was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the 1910s to the late 1950s, who returned to singing in her 80s after 20 years working as a nurse.
Agontimé was a queen of Dahomey in the early 1800s, one of multiple wives of King Agonglo.
Eulalie Nibizi is a Burundian trade unionist and human rights activist.
South African chemist and professor Tebello Nyokong is helping to pioneer a safer method of cancer detection and photodynamic therapy, a treatment without the harmful side effects of chemotherapy.
Rapelang Rabana is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and speaker who founded the learning technology company Rekindle Learning in 2013.