Wangari Maathai was born April 1, 1940 in a traditional mud-walled house with no electricity or running water. She was the first woman from Africa honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and the first woman in East and Central African to earn a doctorate degree.
Considered one of the greatest writers in the United States, Maya Angelou was the first African-American to work on the streetcars in San Francisco. She was the first African-American woman to recite her poetry at a US presidential inauguration, the first African-American women to make the non-fiction bestseller’s list, the first African-American woman to have an original screenplay produced for the movie Georgia, Georgia in 1972.
