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Mary Church Terrell
Sitting down for a meal friends in the Thompson Restaurant in Washington D.C. in 1950, Mary Church Terrell and her companions were denied service because they were African-American. As the former president of the National Association of Colored Women, Terrell was not about to put up with segregation in the middle of the 20 century. She promptly filed a lawsuit. In the three years that she waited for a court decision. -
Helen Keller
A story has been told in the play and film The Miracle Worker, but that’s not where it ends. Keller went on to graduate from Radcliffe College in 1904, the first blind-deaf person to do so. She traveled to more than 30 countries, wrote 14 books and met every president from Calvin Coolidge to John F. Kennedy. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
The area where Eleanor’s strength was strongest was in civil rights. Traveling around the U.S., she had a sense of racial issues and tensions that plagued the country. African-Americans, especially in the South, were seriously discriminated against . -
Alice Paul
As president of the National Women’s Party, the wing of the suffrage movement, Paul felt that American women needed to push harder and to make more noise. In 1906 she spent time in England and where she observed the Women’s Social and Political Union in their battle with the British Parliament. Known as “suffragettes,” these British women publicized their cause by regularly disrupting meetings and holding hunger strikes. -
Georgia O'Keefe
O’Keeffe would stop at nothing to capture images on canvas. Her subjects ranged from trees and mountains to skyscrapers and desert churches. O’Keeffe once said: “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” -
Lucille Ball
In all probability, red-headed comedienne Lucille Ball will never be dethroned as the queen of television comedy. Ball’s performances were must-see TV between 1951 and 1974 in three different series and numerous specials. -
Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias
Zaharias used her remarkable athletic prowess to win in just about every sport she tried, which included golf, track and field, basketball, baseball, swimming, diving, tennis, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating and cycling. -
Rosa Parks
While serving as secretary of her local NAACP, Rosa Parks ignited the civil rights movement with a single bus ride. In Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s, segregation laws applied to the seats on the city’s buses. Rosa parks changed America for ever -
Katherin Graham
She owned "The Post" and made it into the best newsjournal of its time. -
Betty Ford
Diagnosed with breast cancer. Instead of keeping it quiet, she shared her diagnosis, treatment and recovery with the country. Her open, honest approach started a national conversation and helped raise awareness of breast cancer and its treatment options. -
Betty Friedan
Friedan along with others – including the Reverend Pauli Murray, the first African-American female Episcopal priest — founded the National Organization for Women. NOW spoke out against and exposed many discriminatory practices, including bank policies that denied married women credit in their own names, sex-segregated help wanted ads, and different jury duty responsibilities and rates for men and women. -
Althea Gibson
Appreciating her legacy as the first black woman to integrate tennis, Gibson was there to cheer on Zina Garrison who made it to the 1990 Wimbledon finals. Gibson has inspired other African-American players as well, including Arthur Ashe and Venus and Serena Williams. -
Patsy Mink
As a champion of the rights of women, Patsy Mink stands tall at the intersection of politics and gender equality in academics and high school and college sports. Mink was the driving force behind the passage in 1972 of Title IX of the Federal Education Act, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964. With a tenacity forged in personal battles against gender and racial discrimination, Mink shepherded the law through several years of floor fights in the United States Congress before it was passed. -
Barbara Walters
First co-host on the NBC's today show first women to hold the job. She changed broadcasting and televison in america -
Gloria Steinem
she began working as a freelance magazine writer in New York for publications that included Esquire, Glamour and Show. For the last-named magazine she went undercover to write A Bunny’s Tale — an investigative story about life and work as a Playboy Bunny. Not until several years later did she establish herself as a serious political writer, covering the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern and joining the editorial staff of New York magazine. It was there that Steinem was able t -
Madeline Albright
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Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey started out as a newscaster in Nashville and Baltimore, but lacked the detachment to deliver the news in the straightforward manner that was called for; she cried when a story was sad and laughed when it was funny. In 1984, she moved to a morning slot, taking over as host of the ailing show AM Chicago. There, her intimate brand of interviewing caught on. -
Michelle Obama
As First Lady, Michelle Obama has continued her work in community service by launching the Let’s Move! campaign. This nationwide effort is aimed at promoting exercise and healthy eating to tackle the problem of childhood obesity, with the aim of ending it within a generation. The campaign unites communities, teachers, nurses, doctors and families in an effort to meet that goal. -
Lady Gaga
To Lady Gaga, music is as much about visual image as it is about sound. Her performances are larger than life as she wears a dress made of raw meat, a spiked black hood, or the golden armor of an Egyptian goddess. She stunned the jaded Grammy Awards audience in 2011 as she was carried onstage, Cleopatra-style, inside a semitransparent egg by an entourage of men in golden outfits. Similarly, her fans were awestruck when she ascended to the ceiling of New York’s Radio City Music Hall in a giant o
