Angie Brooks

Angie Elizabeth Brooks (August 24, 1928 – September 9, 2007) was a Liberian diplomat and jurist. She was the first African female President of the United Nations General Assembly. Brooks was also the second woman from any nation to head the U.N. body.

In 1969, she was chosen as the President of the General Assembly and took office in 1970. In 1974, she became Liberia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, She also served as Assistant Secretary of State of Liberia.

Early life

Born of mixed Vai, Grebo, and Mandingo heritage, Brooks was the daughter of Thomas Joseph, an indigent minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zionist Church, and Theresa Ellen Brooks. Brooks was the second born out of a total of ten children, and her impoverished parents could not afford to keep her and made the difficult decision to foster her to a widowed seamstress in Monrovia, Liberia. In the 1940s, Liberia did not have any law schools to provide training. Instead, Brooks apprenticed under Clarence Simpson prior to taking the bar exam. While there, the restaurants she attempted to dine at refused her service because she was black. She partially financed her studies by working as a dishwasher, laundress, library assistant, and nurse's aide. She also founded a Department of Law at the University of Liberia to ensure that other Liberians would be able to earn law degrees without having to leave their country. While Brooks became a delegate almost by happenstance, she served as Liberia's permanent representative to the United Nations every year thereafter until being elected President of the UN General Assembly in 1969. Brooks was especially concerned with the welfare of newly independent nations that had previously been administered as colonies or UN mandates. In her first interview after being elected as President of the United Nations General Assembly, Brooks urged small nations to find common ground to unite them into a more powerful voice in order to push back and make themselves heard against the world's superpowers.

She also expressed concern over the welfare and legal rights of women, arguing that they must have more of a voice in the political decisions of their nations in order to prevent warfare. In response to a reporter's question about the role of women as representatives, she stated, “If the men would give an opportunity to the women to be heard and would consider wisely some of the things that they are saying, perhaps the world would be in a better condition.” Very interested in children's education, she donated large sums to projects devoted to this cause. Brooks received a state funeral in Liberia and was buried in her birthplace of Virginia in Montserrado County.