Angie Brooks, Only African Female President of the United Nations General Assembly and Second Woman from any Nation to Head the United Nations

By
herstorywomen

July 10, 2019

Angie Brooks was a Liberian diplomat and jurist who served as the president of the 24th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the first African female president of that body.

Brooks started as a lawyer and worked as a counselor-at-law to the Supreme Court in Liberia after returning from her educational pursuits abroad in 1953. She later worked in the Justice Department and became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She influenced the establishment of a law department at the Liberia University as part of her efforts to encourage women to study law and taught part-time as a Professor of Law at the same university from 1954-1958. From August 1953 to March 1958, she served as Assistant Attorney-General of Liberia and went on to become Assistant Secretary of State.

In 1954, she became Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was the first woman and African to serve as president of the UN Trusteeship Council. Identified with a leadership style that was seen as a combination of charm and shrewd diplomacy, she was in 1969 selected as the President of the 24th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

For her pioneering roles in a global community dominated by men; and for her exemplary representation of the ability of the African woman to mix it up with the rest of the best of women across the world, Angie Brooks is our Woman of the Week.