Risen from obscurity.

"Men of eminence have mostly risen from obscurity."

• Maria Stewart

Maria W. Stewart (née Miller) (1803 – December 17, 1879) was a free-born African American who became a teacher, journalist, lecturer, abolitionist, and women's rights activist. The first known American woman to speak to a mixed audience of men and women, white and black, she was also the first African-American woman to make public lectures, as well as to lecture about women's rights and make a public anti-slavery speech.