Safi Faye is a Senegalese film director and ethnologist who has directed several documentary and fiction films focusing on rural life in Senegal. She was the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a commercially distributed feature film, Kaddu Beykat (1975).
Delta Sigma Theta, a service sorority for black women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, DC in 1912, with Myra Davis Hemmings of San Antonio elected as its first president.
Nicknamed Gwamile for her strength of character, Labotsibeni was Swaziland’s queen mother from 1894 to 1899 and then regent from 1899 to 1921.
Pat Parker was an American poet and activist who drew from her experiences as an African-American lesbian feminist. Her poetry spoke to her difficult childhood growing up in poverty, coping with sexual assault, and the murder of her sister.
Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected the 60th Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in 2017.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction.
Tin Hinan was the first queen of the Tuareg, a group of Berber clans of obscure origin. Legend states that she led them into the Sahara around 400AD. The Tuareg would later dominate lucrative trade routes across the desert in medieval times.
Yvonne Hudson is an American television actress best known for being the first African-American female cast member on Saturday Night Live.
Lozikeyi was a senior queen of the Ndebele nation until 1893.
In 2001, Shirley Clarke Franklin became Atlanta, Georgia’s first African American female mayor, as well as the first African-American woman to be a mayor of a major southern US city.