August 13
/Women peacemakers born today
1818 Lucy Stone born West Brookfield, MA (d. 1893). Peace orator, pioneer feminist, suffragist, abolitionist; rescued Stephen Foster from Cape Cod mob with nonviolent confrontation; inspired Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, and Julia Ward Howe.
1847 Catherine Impey born Street, Somerset (d. 1923). British Quaker reformer and humanitarian; pioneer of transatlantic campaign against lynching; opponent of militarism: vegetarian; founded first British anti-racist paper Anti-Caste 1888; began anti-racist Society for the Recognition of the Universal Brotherhood of Man 1893; campaigned in US against lynching with Frederick Douglass; sponsored Ida B. Wells’s tour of Briitain.
1947 Gay McDougall born Atlanta, GA. African-American human rights lawyer; head Global Rights, Partners for Justice 1994-2005; first UN Independent Expert on Minorities 2005; advised first South African elections 1994, and first government of Namibia 1990.
1949 Marjon V. Kamara born Monrovia, Liberia. Director of UN High Commission for Refugees in Africa 2005-09; Ambassador to UN 2009; UN commission on postwar capacities 2010.
1953 Kristalina Georgieva born Sofia, Bulgaria. Bulgarian environmental economist; official nominee for UN Secretary General 2016. European of Year 2010 for work as European Humanitarian Commissioner in relief of Haiti earthquake 2010, and Pakistan floods 2010.
Women's peacemaking on this day
Feast Day of St. Radegund of Thuringia, Queen of Franks (518-587)
1976 Women for Peace Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams issued first Declaration of Peace. "We want to live and love and build a just and peaceful society. . . We reject the use of the bomb and the bullet and all the techniques of violence."
2012 6000 Tunisian Women marched to protest making women "complimentary to men."
2014 Gen. Kristin Lund took command in Cyprus, as the first woman leader of UN Peacekeeping force.
2016 Peruvian women organized march of over 50,000 against violence. “Enough of Violence!”