7. SHIRLEY TEMPLE BLACK
Try as you might, but you will never find a more successful and accomplished child star than Shirley Temple. She laid the foundation for kids in Hollywood when Hollywood was a baby. She tapped into our lives almost 100 years ago and as a child in the 1930s, stood up against racism on the set by befriending Bill “Bojangles” Williams, a Black man, and treating with dignity. She did this as a little girl and throughout her life.
After retiring in the 1950s, she got into politics. She, the little girl with the curls that everybody’s mom used to hot curl in their hair, became U.S. delegate to the United Nations by President Richard Nixon in 1969, she was the ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, appointed by President Gerald Ford, and she was the ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992, appointed by President George H.W. Bush.
She became the first female U.S. chief of protocol at the State Department under President Ford and also served as a foreign affairs officer-expert in the same department under President Reagan. She ran for congress but did not win.
Undeterred, she used her voice to help the earth’s oceans. She worked on the “Law of the Sea” negotiations as a member of a maritime committee, served on a few advisory committees like the Commerce Department’s Ocean and Atmosphere Management Advisory Committee and the National Advisory Commission on Oceans and Atmosphere during her tenure at the United Nations. She also helped redefine for a nation stuck on gender roles and Jim Crow the possibilities of a better America.