In 1828, she became the first black woman to win a custody court battle against a white man, and was able to recover her son from slavery. At the Ohio Women's Rights Convention of 1851, Truth delivered a speech titled "Ain't I a Woman?" that stirred hearts and became widely told during the Civil War era.

Truth was fearless in her fight for racial equality. She recruited black troops for the Union Army and attempted to secure land grants for former slaves after abolition. In the 1860s, she often rode streetcars in Washington D.C. to promote desegregation and publicly protest racism. Her efforts were acknowledged by President Abraham Lincoln, who invited her to the White House in 1864. 

Corbett was born in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina, and grew up in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Her teachers recognized her talent when she was very young, and they encouraged her mother to place her in advanced classes. 

Dr. Corbett earned her BS in Biological Sciences with a secondary major in Sociology from the University of Maryland in 2008. While earning her BS, she earned the honors of Meyerhoff Scholar and NIH Undergraduate Scholar. She then earned her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. 

Upon graduation, she was appointed to the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In addition to her work developing the coronavirus vaccine, she has developed a universal influenza vaccine currently in Phase I clinical trials. She boasts 15 years of expertise, studying and developing solutions for the dengue virus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza virus, and coronavirus. 

Dr. Corbett’s work and what she represents is vital in a country where Black students are less likely to engage in STEM fields. 

After graduation, Mahoney registered for work as a private-duty nurse. Families that employed Mahoney praised her calm and quiet efficiency. Her professionalism helped raise the status of all nurses. At a time when nurses were often assigned domestic chores as well as nursing duties, she refused to take her meals with household staff. As he reputation spread, Mahoney received requests from patients as far away as New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.

Mahoney was one of the first black members of the organization that later became the American Nurses Association (A.N.A.). When that later organization proved slow to admit black nurses, Mahoney strongly supported the establishment of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (N.A.C.G.N.), and delivered the welcome address at that organization's first annual convention, in 1909. In that speech, Mahoney recognized the inequalities in nursing education and called for a demonstration at the New England Hospital to have more African American students admitted. The conference members responded by electing her to be association chaplain and giving her a lifetime membership.

The New York Cancer Society elected Wright as its first woman president in 1971. Her research helped transform chemotherapy from a last resort to a viable treatment for cancer.

A famous historian, sociologist, and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois also made huge impacts on the field of public health! Through his ethnographic research featured in The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois and his work paved the way for highlighting the importance of the social and health consequences of racism and discrimination against African Americans.

She fought, and still fights, for workers' rights, immigrants' rights, and women's rights. Huerta has been awarded many accolades throughout her career in activism, and in 2012 received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights. Perhaps most notably in the present-day Latinx community, she's known as the originator of the "Sí, se puede" chant, which means "Yes, it is possible."

As well as being a prominent voice in contemporary feminism, Gay and her co-author Yona Harvey became the first black women to be lead writers for Marvel when they were signed to write "World of Wakanda," a comic book spin-off of "Black Panther."

In 2017, Gay released her memoir "Hunger," an exploration of her upbringing and her relationship with everything from weight, to body image, to food.

Much of Gay's work is meant to deconstruct harmful and marginalizing themes in mainstream feminism. Gay is also a huge proponent of challenging toxic masculinity culture and empowering women who have endured painful experiences.

Steinem has not been without her controversies: She faced widespread criticism from the LGBTQ community in the late 1970s for her disapproval of famed tennis player Renee Richards' sex reassignment surgery. Steinem later clarified that her remarks came at a time when little was known about the transgender experience, and said in 2013 that transgender lives "should be celebrated, not questioned."

In recent years, she's become a vocal advocate of an intersectional feminist approach, arguing that the feminist movement must be inclusive of all races, classes, and sexual identities.

"Disproportionately, African American women invented feminism, and if you call it a white movement, you've eradicated … hundreds and hundreds of people who I learned from, who were my teachers," Steinem told Girls Leadership in 2017.

During this period of her life, Yuri saw parallels between the prejudice against Asian Americans and the tribulations of black Americans, and later participated in anti-war, black liberation, and Asian-American movements, teaming up with Malcolm X and Black Power organizations. 

Kochiyama and her husband often invited Freedom Riders — young men and women fighting for civil rights in the South — over to their house for dinner. Living in New York City, Kochiyama and her husband opened their house up for activities to come and speak to anyone who could cram into their tiny apartment.

Kochiyama was a staunch defender of US political prisoners, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for her lifelong fight against racism.

Similarly to Sojourner Truth, Wells was born into slavery. Later freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, she lost the majority of her family to yellow fever when she was only 16 years old.

She spent most of her life working as a teacher and investigative reporter, documenting lynching and racial violence in the US during the late 1800s and early 1900s. She even travelled internationally, exposing others to what was going on in the US, even if she was often shunned or ignored. 

At age 15, Yousafzai was targeted in an assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman. Although Yousafzai was shot in the head, she survived the incident. Yousafzai and her story were met with global support and acclaim.

In the years following the shooting, Yousafzai has risen in prominence as a feminist and social activist. She founded a non-profit education organization called the Malala Fund and wrote the memoir "I am Malala."

In 2012, at the age of 17, Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history. Yousafzai is currently pursuing her bachelor's degree at Oxford University, and continues to speak out on female education and gender equality.

According to fellow astronaut Bonnie J. Dunbar, "Although Sally was one of six women in the 1978 class, she preferred to be considered one of 35 new astronauts – and to be judged by merit, not gender. It was important to all the women that the bar be as high as it was for the men."

She carried this belief throughout her entire career and life. She wrote five science books for children and initiated and directed education projects for students hoping to pursue science. 

In 2001, she started Sally Ride Science which helps to combat misconceptions about women in STEM and "inspire young people in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and to promote STEM literacy."

Dr. Ride has received numerous honors and awards. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame and has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle and the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award. She has also twice been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal.

The artist used her work to portray taboo topics such as abortion, miscarriage, birth, and breastfeeding, among other things. In doing so, she opened up a conversation about these topics.

Kahlo once said "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality," giving an honest depiction of what life was like, especially for women. 

Further, Kahlo was an openly bisexual woman and made no excuses or apologies for her sexual preferences.

In and out of the communist party, Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera were politically active. The couple raised money for the Republicans fighting against Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War, and just days before her death Frida attended a protest against CIA intervention in Guatemala. 

Perhaps her most influential work, "The Second Sex" was written in 1949 and helped begin a conversation around modern feminism. In the book, she articulated a thoughtful attack on the idea that women belonged in passive roles, and criticized the patriarchy. The book was prohibited by The Vatican but that didn't stop Beauvoir from continuing the fight for equality. 

In 1970, Beauvoir helped launch the French Women's Liberation Movement by signing the Manifesto of the 343, which argued for abortion rights. She participated in demonstrations throughout the 1970s and continued to write and lecture on the situation of women.

Her then-controversial philosophies helped launch an ever-evolving conversation about what feminism is.

Though she was a lifelong supporter of gender and racial equality, Anthony and close friend Elizabeth Stanton diverged from the American Woman Suffrage Association when the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870. Controversially, they posited that no more men should be allowed to vote until women and men — of all races — could also vote.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote. The trial would, years later, lead to her presentation to Congress introducing the 19th Amendment. Though it was not ratified until 1920, it was widely known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.