Angie Brooks - Only African woman President of the UN General Assembly

Guest blog: Lenni Montiel: Senior UN Development Leader (Ret.) | Former UN Assistant Secretary-General |UNDP Resident Representative | Governance, Public Policy & Multilateral Diplomacy | Leadership Advisor & Trainer | Chevening Scholar. Lenni writes on LinkedIn about the UN and international development. Originally published here.

Her parents couldn't afford to raise her.

In 1969, she became President of the UN General Assembly.

The first and, to this day, only African woman to hold the office.
She was only the second woman ever elected to the presidency, after the first woman who served in 1953.

Angie Brooks was born in rural Liberia into the family of an impoverished church pastor. As a young child, she was fostered by a widowed seamstress in Monrovia.

At the age of eleven, she taught herself to type.

She earned money copying legal documents to pay for her education. Later, she worked as a court stenographer to finance her high school studies.

It was in those courtrooms that she developed an interest in law.

At the time, Liberia had no law schools, and women lawyers faced enormous prejudice. But Brooks was determined.

She apprenticed under a senior lawyer and passed the bar examination.

When she was accepted to Shaw University in North Carolina, she could not afford the fare to the United States. So she did something remarkable: she appealed directly to Liberia's President, William Tubman.

He was so impressed by her determination that he arranged to pay for her journey.

Brooks went on to become Liberia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where much of her work focused on supporting the transition of former colonial territories to independence.

Then came the presidency of the General Assembly.

After her UN career, she returned to Liberia and became the first woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the country's Supreme Court.

Her story reminds us of what can happen when determination meets opportunity, even when the odds seem insurmountable.

To date, only five women have served as President of the UN General Assembly. Angie Brooks remains the only one from Africa.

Progress has been slow.

But every milestone began with someone willing to be first.

What other stories of groundbreaking leadership within the UN system inspire you?