South Africa, Liberia, Malawi, and the Central African Republic. These four countries are all located on the African continent, but they have something else in common. Unlike the vast majority of other countries around the globe, these four have all been led by Black female Presidents or Prime Ministers.
In 2005, Ivy Matsepe Cassaburi became the acting President of South Africa. According to ThatSister.com, Cassaburi had previously been working as South Africa's Minister of Communications for six years. Evidently, Cassaburi had even earned a degree in Arts and studied Sociology in the United States.In the country of Liberia, Elen Sirleaf Johnson recently became the first elected female President in Africa. The previously mentioned article shares that Johnson became Liberia's 24th President in 2006 and kept her title for over a decade. Such a feat earned Johnson multiple awards, including a Nobel Peace Prize.
Following in Johnson's footsteps, Joyce Hilda Banda was later elected the President of Malawi in 2012. Although she only held the position for two years before losing the 2014 Presidential elections, Banda built an honorable legacy for herself. The same article adds that Banda had previously served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of parliament.
Most recently, Catherine Samba-Panza joined the same club as these other notable women. Samba served as the interim President of the Central African Republic from the years 2014 to 2016. That same article points out that she took the lead in bringing her country through a peaceful election process in 2015.
