Angie Elizabeth Brooks: First African Woman to Lead the UN General Assembly
Angie Elizabeth Brooks was Liberia's first female attorney. She presided over the UN General Assembly as its lone African-woman president and the second woman from any country to lead the United Nations.
She was selected in 1969 to lead the General Assembly, and she assumed the position in 1970. She was appointed Liberia's Permanent Representative to the UN in 1974, and a large portion of her work there focused on helping former colonial republics become independent nations. She also held the position of Liberia's Assistant Secretary of State. She served as a Permanent Representative until 1977, when she was named an Associate Justice of the Liberian Supreme Court, ending her position as such. President Tolbert's nomination was made on May 4th and accepted. Two days after taking her position, she became the first female justice on the Liberian Supreme Court.
She was the daughter of Theresa Ellen and a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zionist Church, Thomas Joseph; She was of mixed Vai, Grebo, and Mandingo ancestry. The second of ten children, Her poor parents decided to give her up as a foster child to a widowed seamstress in Monrovia, Liberia, because they couldn't afford to keep her.
When she was 11 years old, She taught herself to type and used the money she made from duplicating legal documents to pay for her education. When she was fourteen, she wed Counselor Richard. Richard A. Henries (who later became a Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives).
Early work as a court stenographer and typist gave her the desire to pursue a career in law. She discovered that many regulations had problems while working in courtrooms, and she resolved to change the direction by running for office. She decided to pursue a law degree despite the severe discrimination against women lawyers in Liberia at the time.
Liberia lacked any legal schools to offer instruction in the 1940s. Instead, before sitting for the legal test, She worked as a Clarence Simpson apprentice.
She successfully applied to Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, because she was determined to further her education. She returned to Liberia and worked as the Supreme Court of Liberia's Counselor-at-Law.
From August 1953 to March 1958, she was the first woman to hold the position of Assistant Attorney-General in Liberia. To enable other Liberians to obtain law degrees without leaving their nation, she also established a Department of Law at the University of Liberia. She worked as a part-time law professor at the University of Liberia from 1954 to 1958.
When invited to fill a last-minute opening in the Liberian mission to the UN in 1954, She used her training as a diplomat with the United States Foreign Service. She continued to serve as Liberia's permanent representative to the UN each year, following that until she was chosen to lead the UN General Assembly in 1969. The gap between the UN's declared commitments to change and the measures necessary to make those promises a reality was something She was aware of.
By reducing arguments and emphasizing substantive deliberation that meaningfully addressed real concerns, she made it her personal goal to change the United Nations into an organization capable of confronting the problems of the world head-on.
She was apprehensive about the well-being of recently independent countries governed as colonies or UN mandates in the past. She challenged tiny governments to find common ground to bring them together into a more substantial group in her first interview after being elected President of the United Nations General Assembly.
President William Tubman promoted her to assistant secretary of state in 1958. She wished for women to be able to practice law without facing discrimination. To that aim, she campaigned to enhance women's rights and encourage women to pursue careers in law while serving as the vice president of the International Federation of Women Lawyers from 1956 to 1959.
She was the first woman appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia in 1977. She held this position up until a coup in 1980. She had a strong passion for traditional African art and gathered a sizable collection that was later transformed into a museum in Liberia.