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Kenyan scientist, environmentalist, and activist Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai becomes the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."

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Politician, civil rights activist, and Baptist minister Jesse Louis Burns Jackson, Sr, was born on this day in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson began his political career as one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assistants. After King’s death, he took Operation Breadbasket to Chicago, creating a community organization. Later, Jackson merged his groups into Rainbow Coalition, and then Rainbow/PUSH. He ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and again in 1988. Jesse Jackson served as the Washington, DC shadow Senator from 1991 to 1997.