Barbara Hillary, First Black Woman To Travel to the North and South Poles Has Died

Barbara Hillary, who was in her 70s when she became the first black woman to officially make it to the North and South Poles, has died at 88.

Ms. Hillary’s death was announced Saturday on her Twitter and Website account, which said she had gone through “significant health decline in recent months.”

Hillary reached the North Pole in 2007 at the age of 75, and the South Pole in 2011 at the age of 79.

According to the Chicago Tribune, she had retired from a nursing career and survived separate occurrences of breast and lung cancer when she started traveling in the Arctic. Once completing both goals she became a public speaker.

Hillary took on the challenge of making it to the Poles after learning no black woman was on record as ever having done so.