Maya Lin rose to fame in 1981. Just 21-years-old and still an architectural student at Yale University, Lin won a contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Her design beat out more than 1,400 entries. The Memorial's 594-foot granite wall features the names of the more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers who died during the Vietnam War. Each year, four million people visit the wall to pay their respects to these war heroes. Less than a decade later, Lin designed another famous structure—the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. The monument outlines the major events of the Civil Rights Movement. Today, Lin's designs can be found in several American cities and continue to inspire the entire nation.
 
Says Troods: the 3rd photo is the Storm King wavefield she designed. Amazing. I'm learning so much.

Phyllis is remembered for many first time accomplishments from a woman of her day:
 
First African American to publish a book
An accomplished African American woman of letters
First African American woman to earn a living from her writing
First woman writer encouraged and financed by a group of women (Mrs. Wheatley, Mary Wheatly, and Selina Hastings.)
 

Born in 1753 in Africa, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped and sold at a slave auction at age seven to a prosperous Boston family who allowed their daughter Mary Wheatley to tutor Phillis. Mary Wheatley taught Phillis science, geography, and history. Phillis was also taught English and studied the American Bible extensively. Within two and a half years, Phillis was fully literate. At the age of 12 she was reading the Greek and Latin classics, and passages from the Bible. This amazed the Wheatleys. Phillis was encouraged to continue learning and was allowed to express herself, so much so she was also provided pen and paper on her nightstand in case she was inspired to write during the night. She had little contact with her people and remained a slave until the death of Mr. & Mrs. Wheatley when she was eventually freed.
She even appeared before General Washington in March, 1776 for her poetry and was a strong supporter of independence during the Revolutionary War. She felt slavery to be the issue which separated whites from true heroism: whites can not "hope to find/Deivine acceptance with th' Almighty mind" when "they disgrace/And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race."
 
She married a freeman They lived in great poverty; she had three children and all died in infancy. She never found another patron for her poetry, though she continued to write poems, obscuring her own personal ordeals. She wrote over 100 poems, but at least 30 poems were evidently lost. Her long physical frailty, hard life and poverty led to her death at 31, with her third child dying a few hours later.