The woman who made history in the African politics is none other than Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who was born on 29 October 1938 in Monrovia to Jahmale Carney Johnson and Juah Sarwee who’s of German descent. She attended College of West Africa and got married at just the age of 17 to James Sirleaf and they divorced in the early 1960’s due to her husband’s abusive nature. In 1961 she traveled to United States where got an associate degree in accounting at Madison Business College, in Madison, Wisconsin. Then in 1970s, she studied economics and public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1969 to 1971, gaining a Master of Public Administration.
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In 1997, she lost the presidential election she contested to Charles Taylor and then came back in 2005 and won under Unity Party. Ellen assumed office in 2006 January as the 24th president, making her the first female president in Africa. She has won the following awards; Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Indira Gandhi Prize and Glamour Award The Chosen Ones.
