Michelle Wu. Jean McGuire. Uzo Aduba.

One is a politician. The other is an actress, and the other is an activist. They’re all women of color from Massachusetts who have made an impact in their respective fields and on the life of the Commonwealth.

On Friday, people across the nation and around the world will pause to honor them, and other accomplished women of color, on International Women of Color Day.

March 1 is celebrated as International Women of Color Day, a time dedicated to honoring the achievements and contributions of women across the world.

The first National Women’s Day was observed in the United States on February 28, 1909, following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, according to the United Nations.

National Women’s Day was created to honor the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women – many of whom were European immigrants – protested against long hours, low pay and child labor. They also pushed for voting rights, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

But the strike gained international steam when Clara Zetkin, a German socialist, proposed the idea of a holiday honoring the strike at the International Conference of Working Women in 1910, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

The proposal was unanimously approved by 100 women from 17 nations, the Christian Science Monitor reported. This led to the first International Women’s Day, which was celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911.

Since then, it has been taken up by hundreds of countries across the world.

Women of color have made their mark across the Commonwealth.

Some have entered politics as a way to bring forward systemic changes, while others have used their leadership skills to advance social justice causes and champion the rights of marginalized communities.

Here are eight women of color from the Bay State – from the past and present – who’ve made a difference.

Michelle Wu is the first woman, and person of color, to be elected as mayor of the city of Boston. After serving as a Boston city councilor from 2014 to 2021, Wu decided to run for mayor, according to Ballotpedia.

Wu got her start in politics as an intern for former Mayor Tom Menino while she was a student at Harvard Law School, according to her biography on the city’s website.

As a mayor, Wu has tried to push for initiatives such as affordable housing, a free transit system and police reform. Recently, she has worked with city leaders to clear the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, the site of a tent city known for heavy drug use and homelessness.

She has also taken a strong stance to fight climate change. Wu has launched a Green New Deal for Boston public schools, a policy aimed at reducing carbon emissions in school buildings, renovating old facilities, while constructing new ones and reforming the city’s education system, according to the city’s website.

She has also worked to expand early childhood education by providing grants to dozens of daycare centers in the Boston area, MassLive previously reported.

In 1781, Elizabeth Freeman – originally named “Mumbet” or “Bet” – was the first African American woman to successfully file a lawsuit against the Commonwealth for her freedom, according to the National Women’s History Museum.

Freeman was born into slavery in 1742 and was forced into captivity by the Ashley family of Sheffield, in the Berkshires, when she was a teenager, according to the Elizabeth Freeman Center. During her enslavement, Freeman gave birth to a child named Betsy.

One day, Mrs. Ashley tried to strike Betsy with a heated shovel, but Freeman shielded her, getting hurt herself. She deliberately left the wound untreated as proof of the abuse under enslavement.

Freeman had listened while the wealthy men she was forced to serve talked about the Bill of Rights and the Massachusetts Constitution — which declares that “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights,” according to PBS.org.

Freeman discovered the legal importance of these words and worked with Stockbridge attorney and abolitionist Theodore Sedgwick to file a lawsuit, according to the Elizabeth Freeman Center. She argued her case in the Court of Common Pleas in Great Barrington in August 1781.

This lawsuit led to a series of lawsuits called the “freedom suits” which would ultimately help lead the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to outlaw slavery. As a free woman, she changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman, according to the Freeman Center.

Freeman died in 1829 and is buried in the Stockbridge Cemetery.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender staff member of the Obama White House, according to the New York Times.

After graduating from St. Olaf College in Minnesota in 2009, she worked at a Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, an organization that at the time was trying to push state lawmakers to pass a nondiscrimination law that would transgender people, Metro Weekly reported.

She then worked for former Democratic state Rep. Carl Sciortino, D-Middlesex, as a legislative director, where she was the first openly transgender person told hold that position in the Massachusetts State House, Metro Weekly reported.

Freedman-Gurspan then moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked for the National Center for Transgender Equality, Metro Weekly reported. She was later hired by former President Barrack Obama as an Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House. The appointment made her the first transgender staff member to hold that position.

Freedman-Gurspan now works as the Deputy Director of Public Engagement at the U.S. Department of Transportation, a position she was appointed to in 2022 by President Joe Biden, according to the department.

Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven, D-Middlesex, is one of the few Asian American women politicians at the Massachusetts State House – since 2011, there’ve been four, according to the University of Massachusetts Boston. Uyterhoeven ran for office in 2020, after former state Rep. Denise Provost retired, according to Ballotpedia.

A self-described socialist, Uyterhoeven has pushed for more government transparency. In 2021, the state representative introduced an amendment to the Legislature’s 2021-2022 Joint Rules that would’ve created more transparency in the branch, MassLive reported. However, the amendment was ultimately rejected.

“Underlying that [argument] is saying that we have to do our work behind closed doors and I don’t believe that is the case. And I believe that that is an unfortunate and sometimes elitist argument to say that we cannot show our votes to our constituents and to our voters,” Uyterhoeven said during a floor speech in 2021. “We do not have a strong democracy by voting behind closed doors, or being afraid of our voters for voting us out of office.”

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, the first Black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts, won the 2018 primary election after defeating former Rep. Michael Capuano. She ran unopposed in the general election and secured her seat in Congress.

As a lawmaker, Pressley, D-7th District, has been a fierce advocate for several issues, including fair compensation for low-wage workers, student loan debt cancellation, equitable housing and health care, support for survivors of sexual assault and harassment and a reimagining of the criminal legal system.

Pressley is also part of a group of progressive lawmakers known as “The Squad,” which includes founding members, U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D- N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

“I’m willing to work with anyone in the name of progress, I want to be clear about that,” she told MassLive in February when discussing bipartisanship in Congress. “I never want to lead ‘the army of no,’ only ‘the army of yes.’ Because too many people are depending on me to stand in the gap.”

Actress Uzo Adbuba, best known for playing “Crazy Eyes” in the Netflix show “Orange is the New Black,” was born in Boston and was raised in Medfield. Before hitting the big screen, Aduba was hitting the track field at Boston University, where she got a full-ride athletic scholarship, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While at BU, Aduba was a voice performance major, the Wall Street Journal reported. As part of her major, she was required to learn opera, which meant taking stage performance training and movement classes that were part of the theater division.

When she was a sophomore, Aduba began studying under the late Jim Spruill, a former Boston University theater professor, the Journal reported. By her junior year, Spruill invited her to perform in a two-person play titled “Translations of Xhosa.”

While rehearsing in Boston, Aduba said she fell in love with acting, the Journal reported.

“After college, I had many stage roles, but ‘Orange Is the New Black’ from 2013 to 2019 was a major change,” Aduba told the Journal. “I felt for the first time that I was visible and so were my ideas.”

Aduba played Edie Flowers in Netflix’s “Painkiller,” a limited series drama that highlights the root causes of the opioid epidemic in the United States, according to IMDb. Aduba is also set to appear in the upcoming Netflix series “The Residence,” the streaming service reported on their website.

Jean McGuire was the first Black social worker in the Boston Public School District before she became the first woman of color elected to the city’s school committee in 1981, GBH reported. She is most known for being the founder of METCO, a program that helps desegregate Boston schools by busing city students into suburban public schools.

McGuire was executive director of METCO until 2016 when she retired, GBH reported.

In 2004, McGuire received the Boston Ethical Community’s Humanitarian of the Year award, according to a press release from the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Later in 2012, she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from Community Change, a nonprofit organization that advocates for people of color and lower-income individuals. McGuire received the award for her work in helping to reform the Boston education system. She also received an honorary doctorate from Tufts University in 2017.

McGuire, still enjoying her retirement, lives at home in Roxbury with her dog Bailey, who she frequently takes on walks, according to the Globe.

Andrea J. Campbell, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to be elected as the attorney general of Massachusetts. She won the seat after defeating her opponent Republican Jay McMahon in the 2022 general election.

Before becoming attorney general, Campbell was a Boston city councilor representing Mattapan. She held a seat on the city council from 2016 to 2022 and served as council president.

As an attorney general, Campbell has focused on several issues including, housing rights, police accountability and gun violence prevention.

In February, Campbell filed a lawsuit against Milton, claiming the town failed to comply with the state’s zoning law. She has also worked to strengthen diversity and inclusion efforts in the higher education sphere.

Late last year, Campbell joined a bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general across the country in suing Meta Platforms, Inc, the company formerly known as Facebook. The lawsuit claims that the company employs harmful tactics to keep young people addicted to their platforms.

Material from MassLive’s previous reporting was used in this article.