They were the first in what they did, but how many of us know that Jane Bolin was Americas first black female judge, that Mae Jemison was the first female African-American astronaut, or that Elizabeth Ross Haynes broke the color barrier in the YWCA by becoming the first black woman elected to its national board? These extraordinary women are among the four hundred celebrated in Darryl Lymans Great African-American Women. From civil rights activist Rosa Parks to opera diva Leontyne Price, from jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald to distinguished public servant Barbara Jordan, from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison to Olympic medalist Florence Griffith Joyner, this important volume profiles the lives and achievements of black women who took risks, challenged the system, and made it possible for new generations of women of color to achieve the previously impossible. Whether athletes or actors, artists or teachers, these are women who overcame the dual obstacles of their race and ! their gender to leave a singular mark on the world.