Rosa gave rise to the famous legal case, Brown v. Board of Education [1954]. In the 50s, U.S. society practised the most abhorrent and unfair segregation between black and white citizens. In 1955, Rosa refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Alabama, she got arrested for that. Her family mobilized people to boycott buses, drawing attention to inhumane segregation laws. As a result, segregation was ruled unconstitutional by Courts.

Rosa Parks 1913—2005

She was a physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She discovered polonium and radium and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only one to win it in 2 different fields. Her work paved the way for the discovery of the neutron and artificial radioactivity.

Marie Curie 1867–1934

Due to childhood sexual abuse/trauma, she became unable to speak for years. Later, she communicated through her writing and became involved in the civil rights movement along with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. She was also known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.

Maya Angelou 1928–2014