Known for her starring roles as Michonne in the AMC horror drama franchise The Walking Dead and Okoye in the Marvel Black Panther and Avengers films.

[7] Gurira lived in Grinnell until December 1983, when at age five she and her family moved back to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe,[10] after Robert Mugabe rose to power in 1979.

At 18, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College[8] in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Gurira performed in a production of the Ntozake Shange play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, directed and choreographed by Dale Ricardo Shields.

“She approached her studies, her classes, with a lot of focus, and you can see the same things in her performance in ‘Black Panther.’ ”[14] Gurira said that she began writing plays in an effort to better utilize her strengths as an actress, and to tell stories that convey ideas about strong women with whom she identifies.

[9] "Born into this world as an African girl, I never understood the absence of voices and people who were similar to me, it never made sense to me that I couldn't see that representation.

Sponsored by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe, the play was performed at Harare's Theatre and featured the story of two women who were navigating the world after contracting HIV.

The play is set in war-torn Liberia and focuses on three women who are living as sex slaves to a rebel commander, as well as one of his former wives, and a relief worker, and follows and how they deal with this difficult situation.

[27] It starred Nyong'o, Akosua Busia, Saycon Sengbloh, Zainab Jah, and Pascale Armand and was directed by Liesl Tommy.

[28] The inspiration for Gurira's play was a photo of Colonel Black Diamond, a female freedom fighter from Liberia, in an article in The New York Times.

[36] Before the 2020 pandemic, a limited series adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Americanah was being produced for HBO MAX with Danai writing the pilot and serving as showrunner and Lupita Nyong’o as the lead actress.

[41][42][43] Gurira plays the iconic character Michonne, a relentless and strong katana-wielding woman with a mysterious past and steely resolve, who becomes part of the close-knit group in a zombie apocalypse world and gradually reveals deeply compassionate and intelligent traits.

She played the loyal and highly skilled General Okoye, the head of the Dora Milaje an elite all-female special forces unit protectors of Wakanda and its king, the Black Panther.

[55][56] In 2008, Gurira appeared at the Global Green Sustainable Design Awards to read a letter written by a New Orleans native displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively.

[61] The following year, Gurira founded the non-profit organization Love Our Girls, which aims to highlight the issues and challenges that specifically affect women throughout the world.