-Shirley Chisholm-
Chisholm was courageous and forthright. She complained to the leaders until they switched her to an education committee rather than accepting her seat on the Agriculture Committee, despite the fact that she represented citizens of a city. She filed a lawsuit after being denied access to television debates following her decision to run for president—the first African-American woman to do so. She advocated for the rights of immigrants, women, minorities, and the impoverished.
-Bessie Coleman-
Coleman broke new ground for Black people in the United States by becoming the first African-American woman to earn an international pilot's license. But due of her color and gender, she faced numerous challenges in the 1920s as a Black woman. "The air is the only place free from prejudice," she would declare.
The tenth of 13 children, Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas. Her father was a sharecropper who picked cotton for a landowner, and her mother was an African American. Her father's ancestors were Black and Choctaw, a Native American tribe.
Ida B. Wells
In a booklet published with the support of Frederick Douglas and others, Ida Wells was the first to criticize the exclusion of Black people from the Chicago World's Fair. She kept up her anti-lynching mission and started working nonstop to end segregation and give women the right to vote. Among her many accomplishments, Wells founded the first black kindergarten, organized black women, and assisted in the election of the city's first black alderman. Generations of black politicians, activists, and community leaders have benefited from her efforts.
Sojourner Truth
A former slave, Isabella Bomfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth because she was so commited to speaking out about her beliefs, In the nineteenth century, she became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights. In 1864, her Civil War service earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln.