Wangari Maathai 100 Women of the Year
Wangari Maathai was the first woman in Central and East Africa to earn a Ph.D., but she learned the ways of the world by planting trees. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement to teach peasant women livelihoods while reforesting urban areas. That wholesome pursuit was seen as a threat by Kenya’s land-grabbing politicians, and in 2001, Maathai spent International Women’s Day in jail, where she often found herself.
But having found organic links between environmentalism, poverty reduction and democratic rights, she a year later won a Parliament seat with 98% of the vote. The Nobel Peace Prize followed in 2004. By the time of her death in 2011, Maathai had taken on palm-oil plantations in Southeast Asia, and her movement, with branches in 30 countries, had planted 50 million trees. —Karl Vick
This article is part of 100 Women of the Year, TIME’s list of the most influential women of the past century.
Here’s the full list of honorees:
THE 100 WOMEN OF THE YEAR:
1920 The Suffragists
1921 Emmy Noether
1922 Xiang Jingyu
1923 Bessie Smith
1924 Coco Chanel
1925 Margaret Sanger
1926 Aimee Semple McPherson
1927 Queen Soraya Tarzi
1928 Anna May Wong
1929 Virginia Woolf
1930 Martha Graham
1931 Maria Montessori
1932 Babe Didrikson
1933 Frances Perkins
1934 Mary McLeod Bethune
1935 Amelia Earhart
1936 Wallis Simpson
1937 Soong Mei-ling
1938 Frida Kahlo
1939 Billie Holiday
1940 Dorothea Lange
1941 Jane Fawcett and the Codebreakers
1942 The Resisters
1943 Virginia Hall
1944 Recy Taylor
1945 Chien-Shiung Wu
1946 Eva Perón
1947 Amrit Kaur
1948 Eleanor Roosevelt
1949 Simone de Beauvoir
1950 Margaret Chase Smith
1951 Lucille Ball
1952 Queen Elizabeth II
1953 Rosalind Franklin
1954 Marilyn Monroe
1955 The Bus Riders
1956 Golda Meir
1957 Irna Phillips
1958 China Machado
1959 Grace Hopper
1960 The Mirabal Sisters
1961 Rita Moreno
1962 Jacqueline Kennedy
1963 Rachel Carson
1964 Barbara Gittings
1965 Dolores Huerta
1966 Stephanie Kwolek
1967 Zenzile Miriam Makeba
1968 Aretha Franklin
1969 Marsha P. Johnson
1970 Gloria Steinem
1971 Angela Davis
1972 Patsy Takemoto Mink
1973 Jane Roe
1974 Lindy Boggs
1975 American Women
1976 Indira Gandhi
1977 Judith Heumann
1978 Lesley Brown
1979 Tu Youyou
1980 Anna Walentynowicz
1981 Nawal El Saadawi
1982 Margaret Thatcher
1983 Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
1984 bell hooks
1985 Wilma Mankiller
1986 Corazon Aquino
1987 Diana, Princess of Wales
1988 Florence Griffith Joyner
1989 Madonna
1990 Aung San Suu Kyi
1991 Anita Hill
1992 Sinead O’Connor
1993 Toni Morrison
1994 Joycelyn Elders
1995 Sadako Ogata
1996 Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1997 Ellen DeGeneres
1998 J.K. Rowling
1999 Madeleine Albright
2000 Sandra Day O’Connor
2001 Wangari Maathai
2002 The Whistleblowers
2003 Serena Williams
2004 Oprah Winfrey
2005 Melinda Gates
2006 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
2007 Lilly Ledbetter
2008 Michelle Obama
2009 Malala Yousafzai
2010 Nancy Pelosi
2011 Tawakkol Karman
2012 Pussy Riot
2013 Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi
2014 Beyoncé Knowles-Carter
2015 Angela Merkel
2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton
2017 The Silence Breakers
2018 Maria Ressa
2019 Greta Thunberg
This article originally appeared on Time Magazine
Comments