She was the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize.
Kenyan-born Wangari Maathai was educated in the U.S., then returned to Kenya and became a social, environmental and political activist
In 1977, when she was 37 years old, Wangari Maathai established what she called the “Green Belt Movement.”
What started as a modest effort to improve the environment and natural resources grew into a major environmental — and women’s rights — effort. And it frequently got Maathai in trouble.
I met her 14 years ago when she wrote a book about her life and her work.
Here now, from 2006, Wangari Maathai.
Wangari Maathai died in 2011 after fighting ovarian cancer at age 71. She is buried at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies in Nairobi, Kenya.