Famous Firsts by African Americans (Inventors, Government, Law, Literature, Film) Famous Firsts by African Americans The first African-American billionaire, combat pilot, Nobel Prize winner, poet laureate, Oscar winner, and Miss America by Borgna Brunner Local elected official: John Mercer Langston , 1855, town clerk of Brownhelm Township, Ohio. State elected official: Alexander Lucius Twilight, 1836, the Vermont legislature. Mayor of major city: Carl Stokes , Cleveland, Ohio, 1967–1971. The first black woman to serve as a mayor of a major U.S. city was Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly, Washington, DC, 1991–1995. Governor (appointed): P.B.S. Pinchback served as governor of Louisiana from Dec. 9, 1872–Jan. 13, 1873, during impeachment proceedings against the elected governor. Governor (elected): L. Douglas Wilder , Virginia, 1990–1994. The only other elected black governor has been Deval Patrick, Massachusetts, 2007– U.S.

Representative: Joseph Rainey became a Congressman from South Carolina in 1870 and was reelected four more times. The first black female U.S. Representative was Shirley Chisholm , Congresswoman from New York, 1969–1983. U.S. Senator: Hiram Revels became Senator from Mississippi from Feb. 25, 1870, to March 4, 1871, during Reconstruction. Edward Brooke became the first African-American Senator since Reconstruction, 1966–1979. Carol Mosely Braun became the first black woman Senator serving from 1992–1998 for the state of Illinois. (There have only been a total of five black senators in U.S. history: the remaining two are Blanche K. Bruce [1875–1881] and Barack Obama (2005–2008). U.S. cabinet member: Robert C.

Weaver , 1966–1968, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Lyndon Johnson; the first black female cabinet minister was Patricia Harris , 1977, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Jimmy Carter. U.S. Secretary of State: Gen. Colin Powell , 2001–2004. The first black female Secretary of State was Condoleezza Rice , 2005–2009. Major Party Nominee for President: Sen. Barack Obama , 2008. The Democratic Party selected him as its presidential nominee. U.S. President: Sen. Barack Obama . Obama defeated Sen. John McCain in the general election on November 4, 2008, and was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. U.S. First Lady: Michelle Obama became the nation's first black First Lady when her husband, Barack Obama, defeated Sen. John McCain in the general election on November 4, 2008.

First African-American Republican woman to serve in the House: Ludmya Bourdeau "Mia" Love won her race in Utah in the 2014 midterm elections. African-American Firsts: Law Editor, Harvard Law Review: Charles Hamilton Houston , 1919. Barack Obama became the first President of the Harvard Law Review. Federal Judge: William Henry Hastie , 1946; Constance Baker Motley became the first black woman federal judge, 1966. U.S. Supreme Court Justice: Thurgood Marshall , 1967–1991. Clarence Thomas became the second African American to serve on the Court in 1991. African-American Firsts: Diplomacy U.S. diplomat: Ebenezer D. Bassett, 1869, became minister-resident to Haiti; Patricia Harris became the first black female ambassador (1965; Luxembourg). U.S. Representative to the UN: Andrew Young (1977–1979). Nobel Peace Prize winner: Ralph J.

Bunche received the prize in 1950 for mediating the Arab-Israeli truce. Martin Luther King, Jr., became the second African-American Peace Prize winner in 1964. (See King's Nobel acceptance speech .) African-American Firsts: Military Combat pilot: Georgia-born Eugene Jacques Bullard , 1917, denied entry into the U.S. Army Air Corps because of his race, served throughout World War I in the French Flying Corps. He received the Legion of Honor, France's highest honor, among many other decorations. First Congressional Medal of Honor winner: Sgt. William H. Carney for bravery during the Civil War. He received his Congressional Medal of Honor in 1900. General: Benjamin O. Davis , Sr., 1940–1948. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Colin Powell , 1989–1993. African-American Firsts: Science and Medicine First patent holder: Thomas L. Jennings , 1821, for a dry-cleaning process. Sarah E.

Goode, 1885, became the first African-American woman to receive a patent, for a bed that folded up into a cabinet. M.D. degree: James McCune Smith, 1837, University of Glasgow; Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864. Inventor of the blood bank: Dr. Charles Drew , 1940. Heart surgery pioneer: Daniel Hale Williams , 1893. First astronaut: Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., 1967, was the first black astronaut, but he died in a plane crash during a training flight and never made it into space. Guion Bluford, 1983, became the first black astronaut to travel in space; Mae Jemison , 1992, became the first black female astronaut. Frederick D. Gregory, 1998, was the first African-American shuttle commander.

African-American Firsts: Scholarship College graduate (B.A.): Alexander Lucius Twilight, 1823, Middlebury College; first black woman to receive a B.A. degree: Mary Jane Patterson, 1862, Oberlin College. Ph.D.: Edward A. Bouchet , 1876, received a Ph.D. from Yale University. In 1921, three individuals became the first U.S. black women to earn Ph.D.s: Georgiana Simpson, University of Chicago; Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, University of Pennsylvania; and Eva Beatrice Dykes, Radcliffe College. Novelist: Harriet Wilson, Our Nig (1859). Poet: Lucy Terry, 1746, "Bar's Fight." It is her only surviving poem. Poet (published): Phillis Wheatley , 1773, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Considered the founder of African-American literature. Pulitzer Prize winner: Gwendolyn Brooks , 1950, won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

Pulitzer Prize winner in Drama: Charles Gordone, 1970, for his play No Place To Be Somebody. Nobel Prize for Literature winner: Toni Morrison , 1993. Poet Laureate: Robert Hayden , 1976–1978; first black woman Poet Laureate: Rita Dove , 1993–1995. African-American Firsts: Music and Dance Member of the New York City Opera: Todd Duncan , 1945. Member of the Metropolitan Opera Company: Marian Anderson , 1955. Male Grammy Award winner: Count Basie , 1958. Female Grammy Award winner: Ella Fitzgerald , 1958. Principal dancer in a major dance company: Arthur Mitchell , 1959, New York City Ballet. African-American Firsts: Film First Oscar: Hattie McDaniel , 1940, supporting actress, Gone with the Wind. Oscar, Best Actor/Actress: Sidney Poitier , 1963, Lilies of the Field; Halle Berry , 2001, Monster's Ball.

Oscar, Best Actress Nominee: Dorothy Dandridge , 1954, Carmen Jones. Film director: Oscar Micheaux, 1919, wrote, directed, and produced The Homesteader, a feature film. Hollywood director: Gordon Parks directed and wrote The Learning Tree for Warner Brothers in 1969. African-American Firsts: Television Network television show host: Nat King Cole , 1956, "The Nat King Cole Show"; Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman television host in 1986, "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Star of a network television show: Bill Cosby , 1965, "I Spy". African-American Firsts: Sports Heavyweight boxing champion: Jack Johnson , 1908. Olympic medalist (Summer games): George Poage, 1904, won two bronze medals in the 200 m hurdles and 400 m hurdles. Olympic gold medalist (Summer games): John Baxter "Doc" Taylor, 1908, won a gold medal as part of the 4 x 400 m relay team.

Olympic gold medalist (Summer games; individual): DeHart Hubbard , 1924, for the long jump; the first woman was Alice Coachman , who won the high jump in 1948. Olympic medalist (Winter games): Debi Thomas, 1988, won the bronze in figure skating. Olympic gold medalist (Winter games): Vonetta Flowers, 2002, bobsled. Olympic gold medalist (Winter games; individual): Shani Davis, 2006, 1,000 m speedskating. Other African-American Firsts Billionaire: Robert Johnson, 2001, owner of Black Entertainment Television; Oprah Winfrey , 2003. Portrayal on a postage stamp: Booker T. Washington , 1940 (and also 1956). Miss America: Vanessa Williams , 1984, representing New York. When controversial photos surfaced and Williams resigned, Suzette Charles, the runner-up and also an African American, assumed the title. She represented New Jersey.

Three additional African Americans have been Miss Americas: Debbye Turner (1990), Marjorie Vincent (1991), and Kimberly Aiken (1994). Explorer, North Pole: Matthew A. Henson, 1909, accompanied Robert E. Peary on the first successful U.S. expedition to the North Pole. Explorer, South Pole: George Gibbs, 1939–1941 accompanied Richard Byrd. Flight around the world: Barrington Irving, 2007, from Miami Gardens, Florida, flew a Columbia 400 plane named Inspiration around the world in 96 days, 150 hours (March 23-June 27). 1. O'Ree, the first black player in the NHL, was Canadian. More from Black History Month Did you know? Condoleezza Rice - Government Official - Biography.com Government Official Condoleezza Rice is the first black woman to serve as the United States' national security adviser, as well as the first black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State (2005-09).

IN THESE GROUPS » quotes “I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation’s chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.” “Differences can be a strength rather than a handicap.” “I never wanted to run for anything. I don't think I even ran for class anything in school.” “I'm enough of an historian to know that my reputation will be what my reputation is. It might be different in five months from five years to 50 years, and so I'm simply not going to worry about that.” “I think September 11th was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen. Events are in much sharper relief.” “People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side.” “We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” “I find football so interesting strategically. It's the closest thing to war.

What you are doing is taking and yielding territory and have certain strategies and tactics.” “My parents had me absolutely convinced that you may not be able to have a hamburger at Woolworth's, but you can be president of the United States.” “There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy. Europeans giggle at this and say we are naive, but we are not European, we are American and we have different principles.” “You were told in segregated Birmingham that if you ran twice as hard, you might get half as far. And there were also people willing to run four times as hard so they could stay abreast. And once in a while, somebody was willing to run eight times as hard so they could get ahead.” “Miss Rice is like my sister. We are completely in sync. When she speaks, you know that she is speaking for me.” Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice - Mini Biography (TV-14; 3:24) Condoleezza Rice grew up in Jim Crow Alabama and went on to become the first female National Security Advisor and the first African-American female United States Secretary of State.

Synopsis Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama. She grew up surrounded by racism in the segregated South, but went on to become the first woman and first African-American to serve as provost of Stanford University. In 2001, Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first black woman (and second woman) to hold the post, and went on to become the first black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State. (She was the nation's 66th Secretary of State, serving from January 2005 to 2009.) Early Life Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama. The only child of a Presbyterian minister and a teacher, Rice grew up surrounded by racism in the segregated South. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies in 1981.

That same year, she joined Stanford University as a political science professor—a position that she has held for more than three decades and plans to soon return to, full-time, according to a statement she made in 2012. In 1993, Rice became the first woman and first African-American to serve as provost of Stanford University—a post she held for six years. During that time, she also served as the university's chief budget and academic officer. Political Career In the mid-1980s, Rice spent a period in Washington, D.C., working as an international affairs fellow attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1989, she became director of Soviet and East European affairs with the National Security Council, and special assistant to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military. A few years later, in 2001, Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first black woman (and second woman) to hold the post. She went on to become the first black woman to serve as U.S.

Secretary of State—she became the nation's 66th Secretary of State in 2004, following Colin Powell's resignation, and served from January 2005 to 2009. As Secretary of State, Rice has dedicated her department to "Transformational Diplomacy," with a mission of building and sustaining democratic, well-governed states around the world and the Middle East in particular. To that end, she has relocated American diplomats to such hardship locations as Iraq, Afghanistan and Angola, and required them to become fluent in two foreign languages. She also created a high-level position to de-fragment U.S. foreign aid. Rice's books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). In Recent Years In August 2012, Rice and South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore became the first women to (simultaneously) become members of the Augusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia. The event was monumental.

The club, which opened in 1933, had infamously been known for its all-male membership and repeated failure to admit women. Just a few weeks later, on August 29, 2012, Rice attended the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, showing her support for the Republican Party's 2012 election candidates , Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Rice delivered a riveting speech on the second day of the convention, spurring positive media attention: "I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough," she said, adding that her future plans focus on being an educator, not a politician. "I'll go back and be a happy Stanford faculty member," Rice said. "And, obviously, I'll do what I can to help this ticket. But my life is in Palo Alto.

My future is with my students at Stanford and in public service on issues that I care about like education reform." Videos Firsts in American Women's History Firsts in American Women's History At least 12,000 years ago According to a theory accepted by most anthropologists, the first women arrive in North America via the Bering land bridge from Asia. At least 2,000 years ago Women play important roles in the hundreds of different American Indian cultures that thrived before European arrival in the 1500s. Women's roles were as varied as their societies. Some women gathered food or planted crops; some made tools and built houses; some participated in trade. In some societies, community life and economics were organized around female kinship. In many, older women were important leaders; they might choose the chief, arrange marriages, or run the treasury. 1587 Virginia Dare is the first person born in America to English parents (Roanoke Island, Virginia). 1647 Margaret Brent appears before the Maryland assembly demanding that women be granted the right to vote. She is the first woman in Maryland to own property, and one of the first known suffragists in American history.

1650 Anne Bradstreet's book of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, is published in England, making her the first published American woman writer. 1707 Henrietta Johnston begins to work as a portrait artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, making her the first known professional woman artist in America. 1766 Mary Katherine Goddard and her widowed mother become publishers of the Providence Gazette newspaper and the annual West's Almanack, making her the first woman publisher in America. In 1789 Goddard opened a Baltimore bookstore, probably the first woman in America to do so. 1767 Anne Catherine Hoof Green takes over her late husband's printing and newspaper business, becoming the first American woman to run a print shop. The following year she is named the official printer for the colony of Maryland. 1790 Mother Bernardina Matthews establishes a Carmelite convent near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the first community of Roman Catholic nuns in the Thirteen Colonies.

(The Ursuline convent established in New Orleans in 1727 was still in French territory.) 1791 Actress and schoolteacher Susanna Haswell Rowson's melodramatic novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth is published. Later known as Charlotte Temple, it becomes a bestseller with more than 150 printings. 1792 Suzanne Vaillande appears in The Bird Catcher, in New York, the first ballet presented in the U.S. She was also probably the first woman to work as a choreographer and set designer in the United States. 1795 Anne Parrish establishes, in Philadelphia, the House of Industry, the first charitable organization for women in America. 1809 Mary Kies becomes the first woman to receive a patent, for a method of weaving straw with silk. Elizabeth Ann Seton establishes the first American community of the Sisters of Charity, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In 1975 she became the first native-born American to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. 1824 The first public high school for girls opens in Worcester, Massachusetts.

1826 Lydia Maria Child serves as editor of the Juvenile Miscellany, the first children's magazine in the United States. 1830s Mills in industrial towns such as Lowell, Massachusetts, are staffed almost entirely by young women. These “mill girls” have a kind of independence their mothers could not have imagined. They earn their own money and live together in boardinghouses. They also take part in strikes and other actions by organized labor. 1832 American educator Catherine Beecher publishes the first book about physical fitness for women, A Course of Calisthenics for Young Ladies. 1837 Oberlin College, in Ohio, becomes the first college to admit female students. In addition to studying, the women have to do laundry and cook meals for the male students. 1837 The Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, in Massachusetts, is created to provide higher education to women. Most of its early graduates became teachers. 1840s The first commercial Valentine cards, trimmed with imported lace, are made by Esther Howland in Worcester, Massachusetts. 1848 The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts becomes the first such institution in the United States to accept women as students.

The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in the United States, graduates first in her class at New York's Geneva College. 1850s In her magazine, the Lily, American feminist Amelia Bloomer promotes the comfort of "bloomers," a simple flaring skirt over Turkish-style trousers. 1851 Harriet Beecher Stowe's first novel about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is featured as a serial in an abolitionist newspaper. Published as a book the following year, it becomes an international bestseller and has a profound impact on public opinion about slavery. The first sorority is founded by 16 women at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. First named the Adelphians, they later became Alpha Delta Pi. 1853 Antoinette Blackwell becomes the first American woman to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination (Congregational). 1859 Harriet Wilson becomes the first African-American novelist with the publication of Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black.

1860s-1890s A number of colleges for women are opened: Vassar (1865), in New York state; Wellesley (1875), Smith (1875), and Radcliffe (1893), in Massachusetts; Bryn Mawr (1885), in Pennsylvania; and Barnard (1889), in New York City. With Mount Holyoke, which became a college in 1893, they are known as the Seven Sisters. 1861-1865 The Civil War. An estimated 3,200 women served as volunteer nurses for the northern and southern armies. 1866 Lucy Hobbs becomes the first woman to graduate from dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. 1868 For the first time, the "Ladies Life" class at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts allows women to draw from a nude model, as male artists have done for centuries. 1869 On December 10, 1869, Wyoming becomes the first state to grant women the right to vote.

Arabella Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first woman lawyer. 1870 In Wyoming, for the first time in U.S. history, women are allowed to serve on a grand jury. Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school. 1872 Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated by the National Radical Reformers. 1873 Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns her B.S. degree. She becomes the first female professional chemist in the nation. 1874 The Philadelphia chapter of the YWCA hosts its first summer camp, a "vacation project" for girls who are tired out by working long hours. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded to improve the morality of the nation, in particular by protesting alcoholic beverages. 1879 Belva Ann Lockwood becomes the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mary Baker Eddy establishes the Church of Christ, Scientist, becoming the first woman to found a major religion, Christian Science. 1881 Spelman College, the first college for black women in the United States, is founded in Atlanta, Georgia. Nurse Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross. She worked for ten years to establish this foundation, which provides peacetime disaster relief as well as wartime assistance. 1885 Sarah E. Goode becomes the first African-American woman to receive a patent, for a bed that folded up into a cabinet. Goode, who owned a furniture store in Chicago, intended the bed to be used in apartments. 1887 Susanna Medora Salter becomes the first woman elected mayor of an American town, in Argonia, Kansas. 1890s Bicycling becomes a health trend for women. It's not just the wheels that enable women to move more quickly and freely-bicycling helps spark the popularity of shorter skirts and looser, more comfortable clothing. 1890 Louise Blanchard Bethune is the first woman to become a full member of the American Institute of Architects.

American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, who used the pen name Nellie Bly, completes a trip around the world in a record 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes. 1893 On March 22, the first women's college basketball game is played at Smith College. 1896 Alice Guy Blaché, the first American woman film director, shoots the first of her more than 300 films, a short feature called La Fee aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy). 1880s-1900s All-women orchestras, such as the Boston Fadette Lady Orchestra, become popular acts in American cities. 1897 Mrs. H.H.A. Beach's “Gaelic Symphony” is the first symphony by a woman performed in the United States, and possibly the world. 1899 The Women Lawyers' Association, a national group to promote the interest of women in the law, is formed. 1901 On October 24, 1901, Annie Edson Taylor, a schoolteacher from Michigan, becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1902 Schoolteacher Josephine "Jessie" Field Shambaugh, "the Mother of 4-H," starts the Girls Home Club in Page County, Iowa, to help girls learn practical skills. Ten years later, with her other venture, the Boys Corn Club, it evolved into 4-H. The first U.S. postage stamp picturing an American woman is issued. Martha Washington appears on a lilac-colored eight-cent stamp. 1908 Julia Ward Howe, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," becomes the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. May 10th, the first Mother's Day celebrations in the United States take place in Philadelphia and in Grafton, West Virginia. 1909 International Women's Day, a day to honor the world's working women is proclaimed. 1910s-1920s Theda Bara, “The Vamp,” and Mary Pickford, “America's Sweetheart,” are some of the first stars of the silent screen. Pickford also founded her own studio and was a longtime producer.

1910 The first Camp Fire Girls meetings, organized by Luther and Charlotte Gulick, are held in Vermont. 1912 March 12, the first Girl Scouts troop in America is founded in Savannah, Georgia, by Juliette Gordon Low. 1912 The influential editor Harriet Monroe founds Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, which introduces American readers to such poets as Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost. 1914 Mary Davenport-Engberg is the first woman to conduct a symphony orchestra, in Bellingham, Washington. 1915 The American Medical Women's Association is formed to provide a voice and a network for women in medicine. At that time, women were barred from membership in the American Medical Association. 1916 Jeannette Rankin, of Montana, is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. 1917-1918 U.S. involvement in World War I. About 10,000 U.S. women serve as nurses for the military.

1920s In New York, African-American women such as Zora Neale Hurston, Helene Johnson, and Nella Larsen become literary figures in the period of flourishing arts that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. 1920 The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago. On August 26, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote in national elections. 1921 Working in a Greenwich Village basement, with the noise of a speakeasy overhead, Lila Acheson Wallace and her husband are the founders of the Reader's Digest. She serves as editor, manager, and art buyer for the magazine. American novelist Edith Wharton becomes the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She wins the award for her novel The Age of Innocence. 1922 Rebecca Felton of Georgia becomes the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. She is appointed by the governor of Georgia after the death of her husband. As the first woman senator, she serves for only two days.

1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female state governor Florence Sabin, researcher of the origin of blood cells, becomes the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She is also the first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical School. 1926 American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel. 1927 The silence of the screen is broken, as actors begin to speak. Actresses Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich are among the first stars in the new “talkies.” Christine Quintasket, also known as Mourning Dove, publishes what is probably the first novel by an American Indian woman: Cogewea, the Half Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range. It incorporates her observations of turn-of-the-century life on the Great Plains, including the last roundup of wild bison. 1928 The World Association of Girls Scouts and Girl Guides is formed to bring together girls from more than 100 countries. 1929 The first Academy Awards ceremony takes place in Hollywood, California. Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for her role in Seventh Heaven.

1931 Maxine Dunlap becomes first American woman to earn a glider pilot license. 1932 January 12, 1932 Hattie Caraway of Arkansas becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate after winning a special election to fill the remaining term of her late husband. In November 1932, she wins the election for a full term. May 20, American aviator Amelia Earhart begins the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic Ocean. She takes a can of tomato juice and a thermos of soup for her 14-hour, 56-minute flight from Newfoundland to Ireland. 1933 Frances Perkins is appointed secretary of labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making her the first woman member of a presidential cabinet. 1933-1943 Photographer Dorothea Lange and painter Alice Neel are some of the many artists who receive federal support for their art through New Deal programs. 1934 On October 23, 1934, American adventurer Jeanette Piccard sets an altitude record for female balloonists when she ascends 57,579 feet.

Lettie Pate Whitehead becomes the first American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company. 1935 Becky Sharp is the first Technicolor film, with Miriam Hopkins in the title role. January 11, American aviator Amelia Earhart begins her landmark flight across the Pacific Ocean. She is the first aviator to make that journey solo. 1941-1945 U.S. involvement in World War II. About 100,000 women serve as WACs (members of the Women's Army Corps) and about 86,000 as WAVEs (Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service). On the home front, more than 6 million women fill industrial jobs to help the war effort 1942 The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is established in the United States. 1942-1945 Thousands of women fill the new jobs created by World War II. “Rosie the Riveter” becomes a symbol of the glamorous and patriotic female factory worker.

But when wartime ends, the Rosies are sent home-or back to the low-paying agricultural or domestic work they had done before the war. 1946 Edith Houghton becomes the first woman hired as a first major-league baseball scout. The Italian-born Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini is canonized as the first American saint. 1949 The Ladies Professional Golf Association is founded in New York City. 1950s The vivid and realistic short stories of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty bring female voices to the fertile tradition of Southern literature. 1950 The Society of Women Engineers is founded in New Jersey. It strives to educate women about opportunities in engineering and to help women engineers reach their fullest potential. 1953 Oveta Culp Hobby becomes the first woman to serve as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. She is also the first director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and the first woman to receive the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal. Jacqueline Cochran breaks the sound barrier by flying an F-86 over Roger's Dry Lake, California, at the speed of 652.337 miles per hour.

Eleven years later, she flies at a speed of 1,429.2 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound. 1955 On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a longtime activist with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, so that a white man could have it. Parks is arrested and the Montgomery black community launch a bus boycott that lasts for more than a year and becomes a turning point in the civil-rights movement. Rosa Parks Day is celebrated on December 1st. 1958 Two years after its founders first met, La Leche League is officially founded to educate women about breastfeeding and its health benefits. During the 1950s and 1960s, breastfeeding went out of fashion in the United States. 1960 Jerrie Cobb is the first woman in the U.S. to undergo astronaut testing. NASA, however, cancels the women's program in 1963. It is not until 1983 that an American woman—Dr. Sally K. Ride—is sent into space.

Liza Redfield is the first woman to conduct an orchestra on Broadway. She leads a 24-piece orchestra in The Music Man. 1963 The Equal Pay Act makes it illegal for companies to pay different rates to women and men who do the same work. The Presidential Commission on the status of women, appointed by President Kennedy and chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, releases a report that details inequalities faced by women. Kennedy follows with a presidential order demanding that the civil service make hiring decisions “solely on the basis of ability” and “without regard to sex.” 1964 Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race or sex. Never before had it been illegal for a company to refuse to hire or promote a woman just because of her sex. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is created to enforce the new law. Margaret Chase Smith, of Maine, becomes the first woman nominated for president of the United States by a major political party, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. 1965 Patsy Takemoto Mink, of Hawaii, is the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress.

She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24 years. 1967 Althea Gibson is the first African-American tennis player to win a singles title at Wimbledon. Muriel "Mickey" Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of its member firms. 1969 Shirley Chisholm of New York becomes the first African-American woman to serve in Congress. Her motto is, "Unbought and unbossed." She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years. 1970 Diane Crump becomes the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby. 1971 Ms. Magazine is first published as a sample insert in New York magazine; 300,000 copies are sold out in 8 days. The first regular issue is published in July 1972. The Association for Women in Mathematics is formed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) is organized in Chicago. They work to promote and support women's involvement in these fields.

1972 Women dominate the 1971 Grammy Awards, taking all four top categories. Carole King won Record, Album and Song of the Year, while Carly Simon takes the Best New Artist award. Sally Jean Priesand is ordained as the first woman rabbi in the United States. Juanita Kreps becomes the first woman director of the New York Stock Exchange. She later becomes the first woman appointed Secretary of Commerce. 1973 The Boston Women's Health Book Collective publishes the first edition of their groundbreaking book, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Singer Patsy Cline becomes the first woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame 1974 Two groundbreaking organizations are formed to improve conditions in secretarial work, a mostly female field: 9 to 5, in Boston, and Women Employed, in Chicago. As in traditional labor unions, members worked for better wages and job security. But they also used the media to reveal the disrespect faced by many female office workers. For instance, when women were fired for refusing to make coffee or run personal errands for their bosses, the groups organized pickets to publicize the insulting treatment.

Women from such labor unions as the United Auto Workers come together to found the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). CLUW helped give voice to women and the problems they faced within their various unions. It also helped women to achieve recognition as a significant force within the labor movement as a whole. 1975 Elizabeth Ann Seton is canonized, making her the first American-born saint. Women are permitted to enroll in the U.S. military academies for the first time. 1976 Sarah Caldwell becomes the first woman to conduct at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. 1977 Azie Taylor Morton, the first African-American woman to serve as treasurer of the United States, takes office. 1979 The youth organization Big Brothers of America introduces its girls' program, Big Sisters of America. 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor is appointed by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, making her its first woman justice. 1983 Ellen Taafe Zwilich becomes the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for Three Movements for Orchestra. June 18, Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut to travel in space, begins a six-day mission aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

1984 Geraldine Ferraro, a Democratic congresswoman from Queens, New York, becomes the first woman nominated by a major political party as candidate for vice president. 1985 Penny Harrington becomes the first female police chief of a major U.S. city (Portland, Oregon). Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. 1986 Ann Bancroft of Minnesota becomes the first woman to walk to the North Pole. 1987 National Museum for Women in the Arts opens in Washington, DC. Singer Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. First celebration of women's history month, a month-long national celebration in the United States On November 6, 1987, Tania Aebi returns to New York after sailing solo around the world for 27 months. She is the first American woman and the youngest person ever to do so. 1989 In Boston, the Reverend Barbara C. Harris becomes the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Florida, becomes the first Hispanic woman elected to congress. She serves in the U.S.

House of Representatives. 1990 Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as U.S. Surgeon General, becoming the first woman (and first Hispanic) to hold that job. 1991 On January 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC, becoming the first black woman to serve as mayor of a major city. 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun, of Illinois, becomes the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. 1992-1993 Mona Van Duyn is the first woman to serve as Poet Laureate of the United States. (The national Poet Laureate is appointed by the Library of Congress each year and works to increase the public's appreciation of poetry.) 1993 Toni Morrison becomes the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Janet Reno is confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney General, becoming the first woman to hold that job. Sheila Widnall becomes the first secretary of a branch of the U.S. military when she is appointed to head the Air Force.

1993-1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove is named the Poet Laureate of the United States. She is the youngest person and the first African American in the position. 1997 Madeleine Albright is sworn in as U.S. secretary of state. She is the first woman in this position as well as the highest-ranking woman in the United States government. 1998 The Lilith Fair, an all-female music tour, becomes one of the most successful musical events of the year. 1999 Lt. Colonel Eileen Collins is the first woman astronaut to command a space shuttle mission. Collins had also been the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, in 1995. Nancy Ruth Mace is the first female cadet to graduate from the Citadel, the formerly all-male military school in South Carolina. 2001 Condoleezza Rice is the first woman to serve as national security adviser. 2002 Halle Berry becomes the first African American to win a Best Actress Academy Award, for her role in Monster's Ball.

2005 Condoleezza Rice (Author of Extraordinary, Ordinary People) edit data Condoleezza Rice is the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush to hold the office. Rice is the first black woman, second African American (after her predecessor Colin Powell, who served from 2001 to 2005), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright, who served from 1997 to 2001 in the Clinton Administration) to serve as Secretary of State. Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, Rice served as the Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor during Condoleezza Rice is the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush to hold the office.

Rice is the first black woman, second African American (after her predecessor Colin Powell, who served from 2001 to 2005), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright, who served from 1997 to 2001 in the Clinton Administration) to serve as Secretary of State. Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, Rice served as the Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification. When beginning as Secretary of State, Rice pioneered a policy of Transformational Diplomacy, with a focus on democracy in the greater Middle East. Her emphasis on supporting democratically elected governments faced challenges as Hamas captured a popular majority in Palestine yet supported Islamist terror, and influential countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt maintained authoritarian systems with US support. She chairs the Millennium Challenge Corporation's board of directors. In addition to English, she speaks, with varying degrees of fluency, Russian, German, French, and Spanish.

Significant African-American Politicians Break Down Racial Barriers Photos - ABC News − Black History Month Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and wife Michelle wave to supporters during an election-night rally at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., June 3, 2008. Obama made history June 3, 2008, capturing the Democratic presidential nomination as the first black candidate to top a major-party ticket, after a giant-slaying win over Hillary Clinton. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images Black History Month Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and wife Michelle wave to supporters during an election-night rally at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., June 3, 2008. Obama made history June 3, 2008, capturing the Democratic presidential nomination as the first black candidate to top a major-party ticket, after a giant-slaying win over Hillary Clinton. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images Black History Month In March 17, 2008, New York Lt. Gov. David Paterson was sworn in to become first African-American governor of New York.

Thrust into power after Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal forced him to resign, Paterson, whose term has also been laced with personal scandal, continues to struggle to win over the Democratic Party and the citizens of New York. Paterson is pictured here with his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, at the state Capitol building in Albany, N.Y. Keith Bedford/Reuters Black History Month In 2001, Condoleezza Rice was asked to serve as national security adviser to President George W. Bush. As the first black American in this position, Rice's role in shaping foreign policy became increasingly important, most notably after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Four years later, upon the resignation of Colin Powell, Rice became secretary of state. She was the first African-American woman, second African-American -- after Powell -- and second woman after Madeleine Albright, to serve in the critical post. Here, then National Security Adviser Rice conducts a background briefing on the upcoming visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair Feb. 22, 2001, at the White House in Washington.

Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images Black History Month Democrat Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois in 1992 became the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. "I cannot escape the fact that I come to the Senate as a symbol of hope and change," Moseley-Braun said shortly after she was sworn in in 1993. Pictured here, Braun declares her victory Nov. 3, 1992, in Chicago. She was not re-elected in 1998. While Braun was the first black woman elected to the Senate, in 1966 Republican Edward Brooke of Massachusetts became the first African-American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote. Brian Bahr/AFP/Getty Images Black History Month Clarence Thomas, wife Virginia Lamp Thomas, and Justice Byron R. White at Thomas' ceremony to be sworn in as a U.S. Supreme Court justice Oct. 18, 1991. One of the most well-known justices, perhaps because of his highly publicized 1991 confirmation hearings that he famously dubbed a "high-tech lynching," Thomas proceeded Thurgood Marshall to become the second black justice to serve the high court.

Michael Jenkins/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images Black History Month L. Douglas Wilder is sworn in as the 66th governor of Virginia during a ceremony outside the Capitol in Richmond Jan. 13, 1990. Wilder became the first elected black governor in the United States. Wilder sought the presidential nomination in 1991, running on a centrist ticket, but he failed to raise adequate funds and withdrew from the race before the primary season ended. Ken Bennett/AP Photo Black History Month In 1989, General Colin Powell was nominated by President George H.W. Bush as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becoming the first African-American to attain the highest military ranking in the U.S. Armed Forces. Powell, the 12th chairman of the JCS, is pictured here. From left to right, Marine Gen. Alfred M. Gray; Army Gen. Carl Edward Vuono; Navy Adm. Carlisle A.H. Trost; Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch; and Air Force Gen. Robert T. Herres. In 2001, he was appointed secretary of state, again becoming the first African-American to hold such a post.

Robert D. Ward/U.S. Department of Defense/AP Photo Black History Month Shirley Chisholm was the first American-American woman elected to Congress, where she represented New York's 12th congressional district from 1969 to 1983. On Jan. 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination at the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y. Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton applauds at right. While she did not succeed in winning the nomination, she did receive 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention in 1972, an impressive count given her modest fundraising total. Don Hogan Charles/New York Times Co./Getty Images Black History Month Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall receives some help from wife, Cecilia Marshall, at his swearing-in on Oct. 2, 1967. Formerly an NAACP attorney, Marshall became the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court. While Marshall had an extensive legacy on the high court, perhaps his most significant victory came before he was a judge, successfully arguing to end the legal separation of black and white children in the public school system in the landmark case Brown vs.

Board of Education in 1954. This ruling later sparked the 1960s civil rights movement and had a profound effect on race relations in America. Henry Griffin/AP Photo Black History Month Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. waves to supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Aug. 28, 1963, on the Mall in Washington, during the March on Washington. A transformational figure in the civil rights movement, King spoke to more than 200,000 people from the Lincoln Memorial, making a famous speech about racial harmony whose enduring first words were "I have a dream." AFP/Getty Images

Question: Who was the first black woman, second African American, and the second woman to serve as U S Secretary of State?
Answer: Condoleeza Rice