Vinie Burrows

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Overview

Vinie Burrows born Harlem, NY November 15, 1928. Actress and playwright. Activist promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation through theatre, focused on peace and disarmament, racial discrimination, women's issues, and economic/social development. UN representative of Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). Arrested with Granny Peace Brigade in an effort to enlist, Times Square, 2005.

Quotations

“Racism, colonialism and apartheid must be eliminated and the arms race must be ended if women are to advance.” (Black Enterprise, May 1985, p. 20; photo vinieburrrows.com)

Audrey Brown Burton

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Overview

Audrey Brown Burton born New Orleans, LA December 31, 1939. African-American peacemaker; founded Institute for Inner Development for ex-cons, New York; Unity Walk, Richmond, VA, 1993.

Quotations

"When I practice standards of honesty, unselfishness, love and purity, then I can be around almost anyone and it doesn't set off a time bomb." (Michael Henderson, All Her Paths to Peace, p. 73)

Gertrude Carman Bussey

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Overview

Gertrude Carman Bussey born New York, NY January 13, 1888 (d. 1961). Philosophy professor; WILPF international president, 1949-52; author of WILPF organizational history, 1965.

Quotations

"Wars on a small scale, whether civil or international, carry within themselves the seeds of world war. A world war, even if begun with so-called conventional weapons, would almost certainly end as a nuclear war." (1955, Catia Confortini dissertation, Imaginative Identification, p. 82; photo http://bit.ly/FOhuBJ)

Goler Teal Butcher

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Overview

07.13 butcher.jpg

Goler Teal Butcher born Philadelphia, PA July 13, 1925 (d. 1993). Black international law professor; Africa AID administrator; advocate of ending global hunger; fought against Apartheid; one of first arrests in Free Africa Movement 1984; honored by medal for human rights.

Quotations

“These are sobering times when the challenges of natural calamities as well as the crises of human uncaring, political miscalculations, military and economic opportunism cry out to us for our input. . . [L]awyers must step forward in the effort to address the challenge of the earth itself.” (“The Immediacy of International Law for Howard Students”, 1988)

Francelia Butler

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Overview

Francelia Butler (née McWilliams) born Cleveland, OH April 25, 1913 (d. 1998). Literature professor at Univ. of Connecticut; journalist and children's writer. Founded International Peace Games, 1990.

Quotations

"People are beginning to have hope now that peace can be a reality after centuries of conflict. . . They're beginning to see maybe there are ways of negotiating solutions." (New York Times, May 20, 1990; photo Hollins Univ.)

Elinor Byrns

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Overview

Elinor Byrns born Lafayette, IN June 14, 1876 (d. 1957). American peace leader and lawyer; feminist suffragist and absolute pacifist. Co-founded Women’s Peace Society, 1919; Women’s Peace Union, 1921. The Women's Peace Union successfully advocated for the passage of the Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war, 1928. Opposed World War I and capital punishment.

Quotations

“A government which learns to respect life will be a sane government, realizing the folly and wickedness of permitting, much less of forcing, its citizens to indulge in the abnormality of war. It will know that life, in itself valuable, can be made rich and beautiful. It will understand that its citizens can never reach the highest point of development unless they abandon such ugly practices as killing, and the violation of the personality of others, and concentrate rather on creative, constructive activities.” (Senate Hearing, 1927, Wikipedia from Alonso)