Pioneers in Black Women’s History
Who was the first Black woman to refuse giving up her bus seat in Montgomery before Rosa Parks?
Claudette Colvin
Who was the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in the United States?
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Who wrote the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God?
Zora Neale Hurston
Who was known as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”?
Rosa Parks
Who is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time and has won 23 Grand Slam titles?
Serena Williams
Which Black woman became the first to run for U.S. president in 1972?
Shirley Chisholm
Which NASA mathematician’s calculations were crucial to the success of early space missions?
Katherine Johnson
Which singer is known as the “Queen of Soul”?
Aretha Franklin
Which Black woman co‑founded the Black Lives Matter movement?
Alicia Garza
Which gymnast became the most decorated in world championship history?
Simone Biles
Who was the first Black woman elected to Congress?
Shirley Chisholm
Who became the first Black woman neurosurgeon in the U.S.?
Alexa Canady
Who became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama?
Suzan-Lori Parks
Who served as a key strategist and advisor to Martin Luther King Jr.?
Dorothy Height
Who was the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal?
Alice Coachman
Which Black woman journalist led an anti‑lynching campaign in the late 1800s?
Ida B. Wells
Which Black woman engineer helped develop GPS technology?
Gladys West
Which Black woman choreographer founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s school?
Judith Jamison
Which Black woman lawyer argued before the Supreme Court for gender equality in the 1970s?
Pauli Murray
Which track star won three gold medals at the 1960 Olympics?
Wilma Rudolph
Who was the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature?
Toni Morrison
Who was the first Black woman to receive a patent in the U.S., and what was it for?
Sarah E. Goode
Who was the first Black woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress?
Halle Berry
Who was the first Black woman elected as Vice President of the United States?
Kamala Harris
Who became the first Black woman principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre?
Misty Copeland