Angie Brooks

Angie Elizabeth Brooks, who lived from August 24, 1928, to September 9, 2007, was a Liberian jurist and diplomat who became the first African woman to serve as President of the United Nations General Assembly, elected in 1969 and taking office in 1970, only the second woman ever to hold that post. She served as Liberia's first female Assistant Attorney-General from 1953 to 1958, taught law part time at the University of Liberia from 1954 to 1958 and later founded the university's Department of Law so Liberians could earn law degrees at home, and represented her country at the United Nations from 1954 onward before becoming Liberia's Permanent Representative to the UN in 1974. On May 6, 1977, she became the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Liberia as an Associate Justice, a position she held until the 1980 coup ended her judicial service.