Winnie Mandela has died at the age of 81. The longtime wife of South African President Nelson Mandela, she was also known for her political involvement and efforts to combat apartheid, as well as controversial actions that led to convictions for kidnapping and fraud.
Linda Brown, the child at the center of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case, has died. The case dismantled federal education laws that allowed segregated schools for black and white students, although Brown never got the chance to attend unsegregated school.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum says it’s rescinding Aung San Suu Kyi’s 2012 Elie Wiesel Award, its highest honor. The Myanmar leader and Nobel winner has been criticized for failing to condemn and stop military violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Dolores Huerta is an activist and labor leader who co-founded what would become the United Farm Workers.
The wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt changed the role of the first lady through her active participation in American politics.
Sojourner Truth is best known for her extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?" delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.
Writer, feminist and women's rights activist Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique (1963) and co-founded the National Organization for Women.
Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, created specialized hair products for African-American hair and was one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire.
Civil rights activist Ella Baker worked with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad.
Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist and the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation.
French writer Simone de Beauvoir laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. Also an existentialist philosopher, she had a long-term relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist.
On the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in the U.K., equality campaigners are calling for the pardon of Emmeline Pankhurst and other suffragettes who were imprisoned fighting for women’s suffrage. Meanwhile, Pankhurst’s great-granddaughter warned President Trump may damage men’s perception of women.
Susan B. Anthony was a suffragist, abolitionist, author and speaker who was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an early leader of the woman's rights movement, writing the Declaration of Sentiments as a call to arms for female equality.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author and social activist best known for her popular anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a U.S. Supreme Court justice, the second woman to be appointed to the position.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. He preserved the Union during the U.S. Civil War and brought about the emancipation of slaves.
Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activist who helped African Americans register to vote and who co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Paul Robeson was an acclaimed 20th-century performer known for productions like "The Emperor Jones" and "Othello." He was also an international activist.
Garrett Morgan blazed a trail for African-American inventors with his patents, including those for a hair-straightening product, a breathing device, a revamped sewing machine and an improved traffic signal.
Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist who organized voter-registration efforts, demonstrations and boycotts of companies that practiced discrimination.
