Yo-Yo Ma, born October 7, 1955 in Paris, France to Chinese parents, is a renowned solo cellist who has performed with orchestras around the world. He has recorded over 90 albums and has won 19 Grammy Awards.
He began playing cello at age four with his father. He was seven years old when he and his parents moved to Boston and then New York City. He continued to study at Julliard School before transferring to Harvard University for a liberal arts education.
He has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2006. Ma has received the National Medal of Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Kennedy Center Honors.
Edith Sampson, born in 1901 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from Peabody High School, and then studied at the New York School of Social Work. She got married to Rufus Sampson and moved to Chicago. She studied law at night, working as a social worker during the day, and graduated from the John Marshall Law School in 1925.
Later, she became the first woman to earn a Master of Laws from Loyola University's Graduate Law School in 1927, and passed the Illinois bar exam. In 1934 was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.
In 1949, Sampson participated in the Round-The-World Town Meeting, as one of twenty-six prominent Americans traveled to foreign countries, meeting with their leaders. Sampson countered the Soviet Union's propaganda regarding the treatment of black people in the US. She also compared communism to slavery.
President Truman appointed her as an alternate US delegate to the United Nations, making her the first African American to officially represent the US to the UN. She served until 1953. During the Eisenhower Administration, she was a member of the US Commission for UNESCO. In 1961-1962, she became the first black US representative to NATO.
Sampson ran for associate judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago and became the first black woman elected judge in Illinois. She continued as a Circuit Court judge until retirement in 1978.
On June 17, 2011, the United Nations passed a resolution endorsing the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, expressing "grave concern" about abuses suffered by people because of their sexual orientation. It was herald as a remarkable shift on the LGBT issue, which has divided the entire world for decades.
Then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stated that "This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love."
Hannah Atkins, born November 1, 1923 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is the first African American woman to be elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. She graduated from St. Augustine's College (now University) in Raleigh in 1943. In 1959, she worked at Fisk University in Nashville, until she and her family moved back to Winston-Salem. In 1953, they moved to Oklahoma and Atkins became a branch librarian for the Oklahoma City Public Library. In 1962, she became a reference librarian for the Oklahoma State Library. She then worked her way up to chief of general reference and acting law librarian.
She worked as an instructor of law and instructor of library science at Oklahoma City University.
Atkins was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1968 and served until 1980, fighting for health care, child welfare, mental health reform, women's rights and civil rights.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter named her to the General Assembly of the 35th Session of the United Nations. She returned to Oklahoma in 1982 and worked as consultant to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, assistant director of the Department of Human Services, Cabinet Secretary for Social Services, and Secretary of State. She had oversight of the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Corrections, and the Pardon and Parole Board. She was the highest ranking woman in Oklahoma state government until her retirement in 1991.
She continued to serve as a member of the Oklahoma Task Force for the Bombing Memorial.
Ralph Bunche, born August 7, 1904, is the first African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the honor for his mediation in Israel during the late 1940s. John F. Kennedy awarded him the Presidential Medal of Honor in 1963.
Bunche served as assistant to the UN Special Committee on Palestine, and then as the principal secretary of the committee. He was the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte (of Sweden) who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict.
Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948. Following the assassination, Bunche became the UN's chief mediator. He achieved the Armistice Agreement in 1949 and received the Nobel Prize the following year.
