December 21

Women peacemakers born today

• 1874 Gertrude Battles Lane born Saco, ME (d. 1941). Leading national women's magazine editor, publishing many articles on world peace; served on Hoover's World War I food relief efforts.

• 1892 Rebecca West born London (d. 1983). Internationalist; author.

• 1894 Dorothy Beecher Baker (d. 1954). Baha'i leader. Internationalist; promoter of League of Nations and UN.

• 1916 Emma Tenayuca born San Antonio, TX (d. 1999). Chicana labor organizer "La Pasionara de Texas"; Socialist anarchist speaker, often arrested; mobbed, 1939; opposed wars in Korea, Vietnam.

• 1937 Jane Fonda born Manhattan, NY. American actress. Vietnam War protester, 1969; made visit to Hanoi, July 1972; organized G.I. Office, Free the Army troupe, Indo China Peace Campaign. Twice arrested, accused of treason.

• 1955 Leyla Yunus born Baku, Azerbaijan. Historian. Azeri peacemaker and human rights activist. Co-founder and Director of Azerbaijan Institute for Peace & Democracy. Awarded Sakharov Freedom Prize, 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1892 First Foremothers' Day dinner organized by Lillie Devereux Blake celebrating women landing at Plymouth.

• 1981 Greenham women protest.

• 1989 One World Action founded by Glenys Kinnock.

• 1992 Three women arrested in protest at Concord Naval Station by Global Peace Farmers.

• 2002 50 women from Code Pink sang antiwar carols at Rumsfeld house, offering cider and fruitcake. "Bombing kids is NAUGHTY!"

December 22

Women peacemakers born today

• 1864 Marion Wallace-Dunlop born Inverness, Scotland (d. 1942). Artist; militant suffragist, twice arrested, 1908, 1909; first British hunger strike lasting 91 hours; arrested for smashing windows, 1911.

• 1915 Edith Wynner born Budapest (d. 2003). Pacifist leader, Campaign for World Government; aide to Rosika Schwimmer; author of study of international organization.

• 1920 Dorothy Stowe born Providence, RI (d. 2010). Quaker by convincement. Co-founded Don't Make a Wave Committee to protest the Amchitka atomic tests, eventually becoming the organization Greenpeace, 1971.

• 1929 Barbara Marx Hubbard born New York, NY. Futurist; recipient of Peacebuilder Award, 2005; Soviet-American Citizen Summits, 1980s; 1984 vice-presidential candidate proposed White House "Peace Room."

• 1932 Maj Britt Theorin born Göteborg, Sweden. Founder of World Women MPs for Peace, 1985; UN delegate, 1976-94; International Peace Bureau president, 1992-2000; member European Parliament, 1999-2004; Swedish Minister of Disarmament.

• 1945 Barbro Sundback born Ǻland Islands. Finnish legislator, vice-president Nordic Council, 2005; founded Ǻland Peace organization, 1992; opposed Iraq War, nuclear weapons.

• 1989 Alli McCracken. National coordinator for CODE PINK. As college student, arrested for assault on Defense Secretary Panetta at congressional hearing by showing sign "FUND MY EDUCATION, NOT YOUR WARS," and vocal protest.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1913 Kasturba Gandhi released after 3 months in prison.

• 1913 Valliamma Mudaliar, age 16, arrested in Gandhi's nonviolent protest Pietermaritzburg.

• 1955 Dorothy Day convicted of failure to do air raid drill.

• 2014 20-year-old Tibetan woman Tsepe Kyi died by self-immolation in protest of Chinese occupation.

December 23

Women peacemakers born today

• 1867 Madam C. J. Walker born Delta, LA (d. 1919). African-American tycoon; benefactor of NAACP Anti-lynching campaign.

• 1918 Eleanor Jean Emery born Glasgow, Scotland (d. 2007). In 1973, became first woman to head a British diplomatic mission, to Botswana.

• 1951 Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross born Jounieh, Lebanon. Mother superior of Monastery of St. James the Mutilated, Qâra, Syria. Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Mairead Maguire in recognition of her work leading the Mussalaha (“Reconciliation”) movement, dedicated to finding a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war, 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1944 Marthe Dortel-Claudot had inspiration of Pax Christi.

• 1948 Jane Addams Peace Assn. established in Chicago.

• 1964 Six women on Quebec-Guantanamo Peace Walk arrested in Albany, GA.

• 2000 Optional Protocol of CEDAW effective, giving women direct appeal to UN.

December 24

Women peacemakers born today

• 1807 Elizabeth Margaret Chandler born Centre, DE (d. 1834). Quaker; abolitionist; poet and pioneer of women's peace.

• 1869 Henriette Roland Holst-van der Schalk born Noordwijk, Netherlands (d. 1952). Dutch poet; friend of Gandhi; nonviolent Communist.

• 1881 Margaret Sackville born Mayfair, London 1881 (d. 1962). Anti-war poet and writer; socialist; pacifist.

• 1943 Tarja Halonen born Helsinki. Pacifist; Finnish Foreign Minister, 1995-2000; active peacemaking in Northern Ireland; President of European Union, 1999; first female president of Finland, 2000; opposed military alliances, including NATO.

• 1952 Petra Finsterle-Häbler born Zürich, Switzerland (d. 2012). German peace activist; second-generation WILPF member. Founded radical alternative cabaret Club Voltaire Munich 2001; organizer anti-SIKO protest against NATO 2009.

• 1956 Irene Khan born Dhaka, Bangladesh. First female Secretary General of Amnesty International, 2001-09; UN High Commission for Refugees, 1990, leading missions to India, 1991, and Macedonia, 1999; recipient of Sydney Peace Prize, 2006; featured in antiwar movie Soldiers of Peace, 2009.

• 1973 Kerry Nettle born Sydney, Australia. Australian senator; Green Party environmentalist. Against nuclear weapons and power; critic of Israeli wars in Lebanon and Gaza; opposed US base in Australia and war in Afghanistan. Interrupted President Bush’s speech to oppose Iraq War and Guantanamo, 2003.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1925 Nonviolent leader Sarojini Naidu elected first woman president of Indian National Congress, Kanpur.

• 1944 German woman Elisabeth Vincken sheltered three American soldiers and four German soldiers in Hűrtgen Forest during the Battle of the Bulge.

• 1968 Claire Culhane began 19-day "Enough/Assez" outdoor film campaign against Vietnam War in Ottawa.

• 2004: Binalakshmi Nepram began movement leading to Manipur Women Guns Survivor Network.

December 25

Women peacemakers born today

• 1806 Martha Coffin Wright born Boston, MA (d. 1875). Quaker abolitionist; feminist; organizer of Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention, 1848; conductor on Underground Railroad; president of many women's rights conventions.

• 1821 Clara Barton born Oxford, MA (d. 1912). Pioneering war nurse, providing what she called "war on war itself." Founded American Red Cross, 1881, and extension of relief to peacetime disasters; achieved US signature to Geneva Convention, 1882.

• 1865 Evangeline Booth born London (d. 1950). Internationalist; led relief missions to Armenians (1896), Japanese earthquake victims (1923); organized International Missing Persons Bureau.

• 1875 Jessie Wallace Hughan born Brooklyn, NY (d. 1955). Radical pacifist; socialist; founder of Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1915; Anti-Enlistment League, 1915; War Resisters League, 1923; pioneer of civilian based defense, 1937.

• 1884 Emmy Arnold born Riga, Latvia (d. 1980). Founder of nonviolent Bruderhof community.

• 1903 Ava Helen Pauling born Beavercreek, OR (d. 1981). American pacifist speaker and organizer; anti-nuclear advocate. Three-time national vice-president of WILPF. Founding member, Women Strike for Peace, 1961. Introduced her chemist husband Linus Pauling to peace advocacy, for which he won his second Nobel Prize, 1962.

• 1904 Flemmie Pansy Kittrell born Henderson, NC (d. 1980). African-American nutrition expert; professor of home economics. Credited with US Head Start program; introduced nutrition programs in many African and Asian countries. Served on WILPF International Executive Committee when policy refocused on issues of the Third World, colonial liberation, and racism, 1959-62.

• 1913 Helen Kinnee (d. 2005). Peace activist; led weekly vigil against Titan missile in Chico, CA.

• 1952 Annie Lennox born Aberdeen, Scotland. British pop singer; led anti-HIV campaign; protested Gaza War, 2009; petitioned for human rights in Burma.

• 1959 Nela Pamuković born Šibenik, Croatia, Yugoslavia. Croatian lesbian feminist and antiwar activist. Active in first regional nonviolence group, 1987; Antiwar Campaign of Croatia, 1991. Co-founded Centre for Women War Victims (ROSA), 1992.

• 1960 Betty Kaari Murungi born Meru South, Kenya. Kenyan international human rights leader. Co-founder and director of Urgent Action Fund-Africa, 2001-09. Vice-Chair of Kenyan Truth, Justice & Reconciliation Commission, 2007-10. Adviser of International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1914 "Open Christmas Letter" of 101 British women to women of Germany and Austria. "Is it not our mission to preserve life? Do not humanity and common sense alike prompt us to join hands with the women of neutral countries, and urge our rulers to stay further bloodshed?"

• 1978 Chipko women of Tehri protested destruction of Badyargarh forests.

• 2014 Topless FEMEN protester with “God is Woman” painted on her chest removed infant Jesus from Nativity scene at St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.

December 26

Women peacemakers born today

• 1618 Elisabeth of the Palatinate AKA Elisabeth of Bohemia born Heidelberg, Palatinate Germany (d. 1680). Philosopher Princess; Abbess of Herford; Labadist (Christian communist); correspondent with Quakers Fox, Barclay and Penn; philosophers Descartes, Spinoza.

• 1914 Sushila Nayar born Kunjah, Punjab, India (d. 2001). Gandhi's doctor; member of Gandhi's ashram; participated in nonviolent protests, jailed 1942-44; active in Gandhi's Noakhali campaign for religious harmony; participated in Bhave's Bhoodan movement; Indian Minister of Health, 1962.

• 1928 Patricia Montandon born Merkel, TX. Peace activist; founded Children as the Peacemakers, 1982; Banner of Hope for children killed in war; opposed Gulf War and nuclear warfare.

• 1998 Naomi Kodama. Organized tsunami relief donations, 2005; fundraised for Nothing But Nets against malaria; multilingual UN Champion, 2011.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1946 Muslim woman Amtussalam began 25-day fast for nonviolence at Sirandi.

• 1990 Arab Women's Union ship delivering food to Iraq seized by US off Masira.

• 1992 Women in Black demonstrate in Belgrade against wartime rape.

• 2003 Anne Farina of St. Louis hit in leg by Israeli bullet in nonviolent protest at Mas'ha, West Bank.

December 27

Women peacemakers born today

• 1894 Annot Jacobi (née Anna Krigar-Menzel) born Berlin, Germany (d. 1981). German pacifist artist of Secessionist school. Opposed World War I; jailed 30 days for antiwar leaflets, 1916. Exiled to Norway, 1916-20. Joined German WILPF following the war. Nazis closed her Berlin art school for not expelling Jewish students, 1933. Exiled to US, where she became a Quaker, 1941. Oversaw distribution of American Friends Service Committee parcels to Germany, 1946. Honorary Chair of Puerto Rico SANE for starting its campaign against nuclear weapons, 1958.

• 1911 Eileen Egan born Pontypridd, Wales (d. 2000). American nonviolent peace leader; opposed nuclear weapons; promoted refugee relief during WWII; founded Pax Christi, 1972; supported Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez.

• 1927 Anne Legendre Armstrong born New Orleans, LA (d. 2008). American politician and diplomat; first female ambassador to UK, 1976.

• 1950 Khadija Ryadi born Taroudant, Morocco. Won UN Human Rights Prize 2013; led Moroccan Human Rights Assn. 2007-14; statistical engineer.

• 1954 Sabine Lichtenfels born Münster, Germany. Theologian and peace activist. Co-founded nonviolent Tamera Peace Research Village, Alentejo, Portugal, 1995. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1992 Donna Husby and Bonnie Urfer arrested in Ashland County, WI during ELF protest.

• 1993 Belgrade Women in Black New Year protest: "We mistrust a ‘peace’ based on ‘deals’ made by the nationalist-militaristic elites who have caused this war. We mistrust the so-called mediators who use peace slogans to fan war and ethnic hatred; they are part of the same old patriarchal militaristic machinery. We no longer harbour the illusion that the international community will not apply the logic of violence and the right of the stronger."

• 2012 Cambodian land rights protester Yorm Bopha sentenced to 3 years prison on false charge of violence.

December 28

Women peacemakers born today

• 1789 Catharine Sedgwick born Stockbridge, MA (d. 1867). Publication of novel Hope Leslie showed a revised view of the Pequot War, sympathetic to the Indian view, 1827.

• 1888 Lillie M. Peck born Gloversville, NY (d. 1947). Founder of International Federation of Settlements, 1922; president of IFS, 1947-52; active in postwar reconstruction.

• 1943 Joan Ruddock born Pontypool, Wales. Chair of Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, 1981-85; member of parliament, 1987; first Junior Minister for Women, 1997; Minister for Energy & Environment, 2009.

• 1964 Aloisea Inyumba born Ugandan refugee camp (d. 2012). Rwandan senator. First Minister of Family & Gender, 1994-99. Director, National Unity & Reconciliation Commission. Played key role in Rwandan recovery from genocide, overseeing the adoption of 500,000 orphans and the burial of 800,000 dead.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1970 "Conference for a New Peace," 18th WILPF Congress opened, New Delhi. First Asian conference.

• 1970 Ludmila Javorova ordained priest by Czech bishop Davidek.

• 1987 Nun Marie Grunke and Joanne Merrigan boarded US Leftwich in Sydney and hammered cruise missile in Australian Plowshares action.

• 1990 Cheryl Lessin sentenced one year for first protest against Gulf War, Cleveland.

• 2004 Spanish courts against violence to women established.

• 2009 Hedy Epstein started fast for Gaza March, Cairo 10 AM.

• 2009 Tal al-Mallouhi of Homs, Syria, age 17, was jailed for blogging, later accused of spying, and sentenced to 5 years.

December 29

Women peacemakers born today

• 1871 Ellen Horup born Copenhagen (d. 1953). Danish Gandhian; opposed NATO, Korean War.

• 1888 Laura Jamieson born Park Head, Ontario (d. 1964). Judge; journalist; politician; feminist; Socialist leader of WILPF.

• 1893 Vera Brittain born Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire (d. 1970). Pacifist author; Socialist; feminist; leader of British Fellowship of Reconciliation.

• 1938 Kathy Kohlhas Knight. Nonviolent Catholic activist; Director of Catholic Connection, Boston; opposed Vietnam War.

• 1951 Carmen Magallón Portales born Alcañiz, Teruel, Aragon, Spain. Spanish professor of physics and chemistry, specializing in women and peace. Director Research Seminar Foundation for Peace 2003; president Spanish WILPF 2011; co-founded Zaragosa Women in Black; co-publisher of magazine En Pie de Paz.

• 1966 Mary Anne Grady Flores. Arrested for repeated drone protests at Hancock AFB, sentenced to one year in prison.

• 1973 Radha Paudel born Chitwan, Nepal. Nurse during Nepalese civil war; founder and president of Action Works Nepal (AWON). Recipient of N-Peace Award, 2012.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1977 Sandra Lovelace filed protest with UN Human Rights Committee for loss of Indian status.

• 1989 Women’s Day for Peace Jerusalem: 5,000 Women in Black marched with slogan “Women Go for Peace.”

• 1992 Nela Pamuković founded the Center for Women War Victims (CWWV), Zagreb.

• 2000 In Jerusalem, Coalition of Women for Peace and Bat Shalom held mass rally, vigil, and march to protest occupation and militarism.

• 2009 Three Wisconsin women arrested at Ft. McCoy for antiwar protest: Gail Vaughn, Bonnie L. Urfer, and Cassandra Dixon. "It’s time to stop the slaughter, bring the Guard home so they won’t have to chase these demons for the rest of their lives."

December 30

Women peacemakers born today

• 1858 Rachel Foster Avery born Pittsburgh, PA (d. 1919). Quaker pacifist; suffragist, right hand to Susan B. Anthony; founded International Council of Women, 1888; co-founded International Women's Suffrage Alliance, 1904; national speaker on peace, 1907.

• 1923 Sara Lidman born Missenträsk, Sweden (d. 2004). Swedish novelist who visited Hanoi in protest of Vietnam War; endorsed Russell War Crimes Tribunal, 1966; opposed Apartheid.

• 1946 Patti Smith born Chicago, IL. Rock singer and songwriter; antiwar activist. Spoke and sang against Iraq War; outspoken critic of Afghan War.

• 1947 Fatima Jibrell born Somalia. Somali-American environmentalist. Founded relief organization Adeso, 1991. Played key role in Women's Coalition for Peace, encouraging women to take increased roles in politics and peacemaking. Awarded Goldman Environmental Prize, 2002.

• 1948 Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos born Mexico City, Mexico. Marxist feminist and anthropology professor. Created concept of femicide, murder of women with government complicity. As Congresswoman, investigated femicide, 2004-06.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1833 Female Society of Lynn met at Quaker meetinghouse to protest women shoebinder’s wages.

• 1970 First WILPF conference in Third World, New Delhi, chaired by Elise Boulding.

• 1989 “Hands Around Jerusalem” 30,000 surrounded city, organized by women’s peace groups.

• 1994 Shannon Lowney and Leeann Nichols killed at birth control clinics in Brookline, MA.

• 2005 Darfurian women presented demands to peace negotiators including participation in disarmament, reconciliation and reparation.

December 31

Women peacemakers born today

• 1805 Jeanne Deroin born Paris, France (d. 1894). Feminist pioneer and Saint Simonian socialist. Revolutionary leader, 1848. First woman to run for national office, 1849. Imprisoned for socialist views, 1851.

• 1930 Odetta born Birmingham, AL (d. 2008). "Voice of the Civil Rights Movement." African-American folk musician for peace and civil rights; opposed Vietnam War.

• 1938 Monica Sjöö born Härnösand, Västernorrland, Sweden (d. 2005). Swedish radical anarcho-feminist, ecologist, author, and painter. Active in anti-Vietnam War movement. Joined 100 Greenham Peace Camp women in pilgrimage to Stonehenge, 1985.

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

• 1957 Prisca Matimba Nyambe born Zambia. Judge International Criminal Court ad litem 2004, full member 2009; counsel to court on Rwanda 2002-6; mission to Dem. Rep. Congo for UN Human Rights Commission 2007; dissented in genocide conviction of Tolimir, 2012.

• 1976 Marla Ruzicka born Lakeport, CA (d. 2005). American aid worker; Founded CIVIC, Camp for Innocent Victims of Conflict, 2003.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1901 Founding of Fraternal Union of Women, France.

• 1918 Marie Equi convicted of sedition for opposing World War I after the end of the war; served year and a half in San Quentin Prison.

• 1990 Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn went AWOL from Ft. Riley, KS in protest of Gulf War. She later served eight months of a 30-month prison sentence.

• 1990 Iraqi women sat in at US embassy to protest seizure of women's peace ship, Baghdad.

• 2007 Kathy Kelly and Mona Shaw arrested at Des Moines office of Rep. Mike Huckabee with sign "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

• 2009 Kathleen Crocetti mural in Gaza: "Women Say Free Gaza"