Elaine R. Jones

First woman named as Director and General Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She is also the first African American woman graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and the first African American woman elected to the American Bar Association Board of Governors.

Carol Moseley-Braun

First Black woman elected to the United States Senate. Was first Black and first woman to hold countywide office in Cook County, Illinois prior to her election to higher office.

Myrlie Evers-Williams

Chairman Emeritus of the Board for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Ruby Dee Davis

An extraordinary actress with performance credits on stage, in film and on television. She has also written a collection of poetry.

Rae Lewis-Thornton

An AIDS activist/motivational speaker who has been featured on the cover of Essence magazine, and in numerous feature stories in Ebony and Emerge magazines, Chicago Tribune newspaper, Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, and the Washington Post. She received an Emmy award in 1996 for her WBBM-TV series of first person stories on living with AIDS.

Jewel S. Lafontant

First American woman to be admitted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. She was also the first female Deputy Solicitor General of the US during the Nixon Administration.

Mary Church Terrell

First African American chosen to represent the United States Congress of Women and to serve on the Board of Education of a major city.

Brigadier General Hazel Johnson Brown, Ph.D

First African American woman general in the United States Army.

Alexa Canady, M.D

At the age of 26, she became the first African American woman neurosurgeon in the United States. She specializes in pediatric neurosurgery..

Vashti Murphy McKenzie

Delta's National Chaplain was elected the 117th bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church on July 11, 2000. First woman elected as Bishop in the 213 year history of the A.M.E. Church. Her new post in the A.M.E. Church 18th district includes Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Lesotho in Southeast Africa. Bishop McKenzie is the granddaughter of Delta's founder Vashti Turley Murphy.