Awesome POC Women... no civil rights.
Personally, though she may not have existed, I thought Jingu no Kogo was awesome. Japanese, older history. She single handedly defeated her step sons and was said to have conquered Korea. =P Writing about her.
Empress Wu of China was the only female Empress at the time. She had her own dynasty, too, which didn't last that long, but was still mighty impressive, considering the environment.
Hatshepsut of Egypt. Pharaoh. There are quite a few female pharaohs that were erased from the record.
There are some Queens of various places in Africa as well, overall. (Some currently as well) (Just blanking too much to Google). One appeared on Colbert Report...
Artist and awesome woman in all sorts of ways Frida Kahlo. Put up with all sorts of excruciating pain, mental and physical, a tumultuous relationship with her on again, off again husband, Diego, but there is a strength I admire in her.
Murasaki, who wrote Tale of Genji. For the given time, I still think it's awesome to have a female novelist/poet recognized so early.
Sei Shōnagon--awesome woman overall. Opposite personality to Murasaki and so worth looking into. Same time period.
Evita Peron, though might count as a civil rights activist...
Cleopatra. Though portrayed by white woman was most likely part Nubian. (Which goes along with the earlier thread I started, WTH is Isis white... (comic book)
Seondeok of Silla, who was followed by several women. Empress of part of Korea. Awesomeness. Well known in Korea for being extremely smart and clever.
People aren't 100% sure about her, but I think Jang Geum would also count. The only woman in Korean history to serve as the personal physician--even the president has yet to do that.
Lady Hyegyong, who wrote two letters which helped people understand the true inner workings of Joseon. The thing is that later male scholars tried to say she was making things up to clean up the record, so now she has a lot less standing, but I'm more inclined to believe her than later scholars.
I'm missing Queens of Persia, etc. I'm blanking, though I know some.
African American female inventors:
https://webfiles.uci.edu/mcbrown/display/women_inventors.html
Gou of Japan (You'll find her most likely under Oeno--she had awesome mother and sisters too). Awesome. Strong woman, smart and contributed to the shogunate significantly.
Considering the resistance to women being intelligent, and especially the stereotypes about AA women, I still think it's remarkable.
Also Amy Tan... authors. Amy Tan seems like a really cool woman. She's been working on writing about women in China and giving talks.
But I think there are a lot of unnamed unsung heroines in history too. Such as the women who acted as mothers to great men, the women who fought to keep their religion even as men put pressure on them and said they were wrong for keeping it. (Muism, Wuism, etc.)
And the women who stayed at home while their men got credit for scoring at war. While contributions to Science and History are significant, I think we have to also consider the women who did things such as invent new ways to look at food so it was more nutritious, ran the courts by being servants and doing all those "boring" domestic things without getting their heads chopped off nor wanting the attentions of the men. Because some of the rhetoric we get is that the things that men do==important. While the things that women historically were assigned to were not, which is why they are missing form the record.
ETA:
Sacagawea--all kinds of awesome. Also the first PoC to be on any denomination of money ever in the US.
Pocahontas--much more awesome than the Disney cartoon made her out to be.