Angie Elizabeth Brooks (August 24, 1928 – September 9, 2007) was a Liberian diplomat and jurist. She was the only African female President of the United Nations General Assembly. She 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, where much of her work involved the transformation of former colonial states into independent countries. She also served as Assistant Secretary of State of Liberia. Her tenure as Permanent Representative ended in 1977 when she was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia. Nominated by President Tolbert on 4 May and taking office two days later, she was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court 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. At eleven years old, Brooks taught herself to type and earned money copying legal documents to put herself through school. She worked as a stenotypist for the Justice Department to pay for high school. At fourteen she married Counselor Richard A. Henries (who later became Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives). She had two sons with Henries before attaining a divorce. Brooks's early experience as a typist and court stenographer instilled in her an interest in law. While working in courtrooms, she learned that many of the laws were flawed, and she was determined to improve the law by going into the legislature. Therefore, despite the enormous prejudice against women lawyers in Liberia at the time, she decided to seek a law degree. 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. Determined to further her education, Brooks successfully applied to Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. As a divorced mother of two, Brooks could not afford to pay for passage to America, so after her acceptance, she appealed to