Kenyan Roots
Wangari Maathai was born on April 1, 1940, in the village of Ihithe in Kenya. After finishing Kenya's only high school for girls, she went abroad to study — she was one of 300 Kenyans who participated in then-senator John F. Kennedy's program (the "Kennedy Airlift") to study in the United States and she holds a doctorate from the University of Giessen in Germany, among other degrees. Upon her return to Kenya, she became active in environmental issues, founding the Green Belt Movement in the 1977. In the photo above, she poses for a TIME magazine assignment in 1990.

• The Legacy of Wangari Maathai, Nobel Environmentalist