Edith Sampson was born at the turn of the 20th century, not long at all after the most divisive issue to face the United States was solved — and while many of the former rebel states were still doing everything in their power to keep African Americans down. But Sampson’s lived in the north, and her father made a good living as a shipping clerk. Sampson then began a series of firsts: the first black woman to graduate Loyola law school, one of the first to be appointed state attorney in Cook County, Illinois, and culminating in the first ever nomination of an African American as a delegate to the United Nations.

On this day, August 24, in 1950, Edith Sampson was nominated to represent the United States in the United Nation. It was a position of tremendous responsibility, and Sampson held it for three years.

Sampson was not shy about the male-dominated assembly, and dove right in — as a member of the UN’s Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee she worked to promote social justice. During the later Eisenhower Administration, she was a member of the U.S. Commission for UNESCO. And in another first, in 1961, at an age when most people retired, Sampson became the first black U.S. representative to NATO.