First African Female President

On my post today I am going to focus on Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and I will tell you all a little bit about her background and how she came to power. Enjoy and celebrate this amazing woman!

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was born on October 29, 1938 and is the current president of Liberia and Africa's first elected female head of state. The Liberian elections commission announced her victory on November 23, 2005, following the 2005 election. She is the third black woman head of state in the world, after Eugenia Charles of Dominica and Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a 68-year-grandmother of six, has already earned the nickname "Iron Lady" and, according to Forbes, is the 51st most powerful woman in the world.
President Johnson-Sirleaf graduated from the College of West Africa (Monrovia), a United Methodist high school. She also received a B.b.c in Accounting at Madison Business College in Madison, Wisconsin, USA in 1964, an economics diploma from the University of Colorado in 1970, and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University in 1971.
She returned to Liberia after Harvard to become the Assistant Minister of Finance in President William Tolberts administration. After Tolbert was overthrown, Johnson-Sirleaf went into exile in Nairobi, Kenya, where she worked for Citibank. She returned to run for Senate in 1985, but because she spoke out against President Doe's military regime, she was sentenced to ten years in prison, however she only spent a short period in prison before she moved to Washington D.C.. She returned to Liberia again in 1997 as an economist, working for the World Bank, and Citibank in Africa.
In 1997 she ran against President Taylor but only managed to get 10% of the votes. In 2005 she came back on the scene and started her campaign and ended up with second highest votes of 175,520.This put her through to the runoff vote on November 8 against former footballer George Weah. On November 11, the National Elections Commission of Liberia declared Johnson-Sirleaf to be president-elect of Liberia. On November 23, they confirmed their decision declaring that she had won with a margin of almost 20% of the vote.