Lisa Fithian

Overview

Lisa Fithian born April 16, 1961. Nonviolent peace trainer and organizer. Coordinator of Washington Peace Center for seven years in the 1980s. Arrested 80+ times in direct actions. Blocked CIA in protest against support of Latin American military, 1987. Jailed 5 days for failed Seattle WTO protest, 1999; part of Tahrir Square protest, 2011; trained and assisted in Occupy movement, 2012; organized Standing Rock protest, 2016; protested against Iraq and Afghan Wars and Gaza Flotilla.

Quotations

On nonviolent resistance: “For me, it’s simply a willingness not to do harm to other living things. It’s a philosophy, it’s a strategy, just like direct action is a philosophy, a strategy. For me, it’s a way of life. . . So, for me, it’s not doing harm, and really having an approach that’s rooted in respect and compassion, not just for humans, but for the planet itself and all the species on this planet.” (Democracy Now, Sept. 9, 2019; photo motherjones.com)

Cherri Foytlin

Overview

Cherri Foytlin born Louisiana September 30, 1972. Indigenous Dine-Cherokee-American activist. Arrested for reporting Bayou bridge pipeline protest, 2016, 2018.

Quotations

“These Big Banks just can’t seem to get it right—they say one thing but do another. When they keep pumping money into dirty fossil fuel companies and projects, it makes us all sick. Sick from the pollution, sick from the injustice, sick from an addiction that is killing us and our planet. We are done being a sacrifice zone, and we are done with your corporate lies. The people of Louisiana are gathering now to right your wrong.” (Indigenous Environmental, May 15, 2018)

“Militarism has been made a cultural thing where people think that it’s American, while it’s a part of toxic masculinity.” (Kairos interview; photo Medium)

Beatrice Fihn

Overview

Beatrice Fihn born Gothenburg, Sweden November 17, 1982. Swedish jurist. Director of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), 2014-present. WILPF Reaching Critical Will disarmament project, 2011.

Quotations

“For it is insanity to allow ourselves to be ruled by these weapons. . . Ours is the only reality that is possible. The alternative is unthinkable. . . The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?. . . To all nations: choose the end of nuclear weapons over the end of us!” (Nobel address, Dec. 10, 2017; photo celebmafia.com)

Margaret Flowers

Overview

Margaret Flowers born Kansas City, MO November 8, 1962. Pediatrician; single-payer health care and peace advocate. Green party candidate; member of Veterans Peace Team. Arrested 4 times for nonviolent protests.

Quotations

“[Our mission is to] nonviolently confront, document, and thereby expose the inherent or actual violence of those institutions that would use violence to impose their will on others.” (quote and photo Writing for Peace, March 2018)

“It’s important for us to make it clear that the United States has a long history of militarism, and that it has been escalating under recent presidents. Obama was worse than Bush. Trump is trying to outdo Obama. It’s not a matter of who’s in the White House or which party has the majority in Congress. It’s that the United States is the largest empire in the world, and we have a very strong military machine that demands to be fed constantly.” (Black Agenda Report, Mar. 7, 2018)

Ernestine von Furth

Overview

Ernestine von Fürth (née Kisch) born Prague, Austro-Hungary October 5, 1877 (d. 1946). Austrian feminist and suffragist. Founded New Vienna Women’s Club for suffrage. Led movement to end World War, 1917.

Quotations

“This longing of the Austrian women for a negotiated peace was expressed by a considerable number of rallies which the General Austrian Women’s Union convened in the last weeks [of December 1917]. These gatherings took place in different districts of Vienna, and everywhere they were so crowded that hundreds of persons who wanted to get in had to be refused.” (Geraldine Ludbruck, Living War, Thinking Peace, p. 182; photo ofra)

Mari Fitzduff

Overview

Mari Fitzduff born Northern Ireland March 15, 1947. American-Irish professor of social psychology. Founded Northern Ireland Conflict & Mediation Association, 1987. Peace trainer and Director Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, 1990-97; leading to peace settlement, 1998. Director, UN/INCORE United Nations Ulster University Conflict Resolution Program, 1997-2003. Founding Director, Conflict and Coexistence Program, Brandeis University, 2003. Worked in Palestine.

Quotations

“However bloody it gets, you must talk.” (Times Higher Education, July 5, 2005; photo hellerbrandeis.edu)

Genevieve Fiore

Overview

Genevieve d’Amato Fiore born Sunrise, WY August 20, 1912 (d. 2002). Internationalist; peace activist. Founded first American UNESCO club, 1947. Delegate to Mexico City Women’s Conference, 1975. (photo cogreatwomen)

Francesca Fiorentini

Overview

Francesca Fiorentini born Rome, Italy July 21, 1967. Argentine-Italian antiwar journalist, comedian, and actress. Editor of War Resisters League magazine WIN: Through Revolutionary Nonviolence; War Times/Tiempo de Guerras.

Quotations

“[W]ork against war and militarism rooted in a ‘race, class and gender’ analysis is needed more than ever.” (War Times, Sep. 30, 2014; photo sksketchfast)

Ruth St. John Freeman

Overview

Ruth St. John Freeman born Hemlock, NY April 18, 1918 (d. 1988). Quaker pacifist; first woman professor at Cornell. National President, WILPF, 1953-55; fought charges of communist influence. Called for nuclear abolition; co-authored two pamphlets against conscription, 1945. Endowed internship at War Resisters League.

Quotations

“Since Quakers are devoted to ‘peace’ in the absolute, have issued many statements against war in any form, and early refused to profit from war or believe that war could accomplish any desired end, it could be expected that they would speak for peace even in the midst of war.” (“Quakers and Peace”, p. 57)

Joy First

Overview

Joy First born July 28, 1955. Peace protest organizer. National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance; placed cardboard tombstones in Senators offices protesting war deaths, 2007; White House protest Afghan War, 2009; sentenced 100 days probation for CIA protest, 2013; arrested for protesting drones at Volk AFB. Went on 90-mile Walk for Peace, 2015.

Quotations

“[I]t is more important than ever that we speak the truth about what is happening in the wars in Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, in the drone warfare program, and in looking at ways in which the climate crisis is exacerbated by the military. . . Mother Earth is Weeping: The US Military must stop environmental suicide.” (Wisconsin Network for Peace, Apr. 27, 2015; photo host.madison.com)

Ethel Froud

Overview

Ethel Elizabeth Froud born Maidstone, Kent, England April 11, 1880 (d. 1941). British trade unionist; feminist; militant suffragist. Founded and headed National Union of Women Teachers, 1917-40. Promoted education for peace.

Quotations

“Deeds, not words.”

“The dreams of those that labour are the only ones that ever come true.” (Ox. Dict. Biog.; photo Wikipedia)

Connie Frazer

Overview

Connie Frazer born Coventry, England September 18, 1925 (d. 2002). Australian poet and peace activist; feminist; democratic socialist. Founded Women Against Nuclear Energy (WANE), 1980; Women for Survival, 1983. Began antiwar protest against Vietnam War, 1970. Co-founded Green Left Weekly.

Quotations

the flesh-tearing hooves
under which we fell; the fused halves
of the mounted-monster man-horse, ancient
oppressor raised tall above us. . .
When there were protests, always
they brought out the horses.

(“Police Greys”)

Adele Faccio

Overview

Adele Faccio born Pontebba, Udine, Italy November 13, 1920 (d. 2007). Radical Italian reformer; partisan resister WWII. Icon of reproductive freedom. Arrested for abortion protest, 1975. Parliamentary delegate of nonviolent Gandhian Radical Party, 1976-83, 1987-92. Co-founded anti-militarist League for Disarmament, 1978.

Quotations

“All children are born doing ue ue, but you are born screaming no!” (Corriere della sera, Feb. 10, 2007; photo dat.camera.it)

Mildred Osterhout Fahrni

Overview

Mildred Osterhout Fahrni born Rapid City, Canada January 2, 1900 (d. 1992). Gandhian; Socialist; absolute pacifist; friend of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Leader of FOR and WILPF; opposed World War II; worked with pacifist Dukhobors.

Quotations

"Love is the Basis of World Peace" (Dukhobor Inquirer, Nov. 1952; photo http://bit.ly/zmwMWb)

Martha Platt Falconer

Overview

Martha Platt Falconer born Delaware, OH March 17, 1862 (d. 1941). Quaker social worker; advocate for homeless girls. Delegate to Paris International Conference on Social Work, 1928.

Frances Farenthold

Overview

Frances “Sissy” Farenthold (née Tarlton) born Corpus Christi, TX October 2, 1926. Politician, lawyer, peace activist; opposed Vietnam War 1969, as only Texas legislator to reject commending Johnson; President Wells College 1976-80; active in aid to El Salvador 1982; leader of Third World Women’s Project; solidarity visits to women’s peace camps Greenham, Comiso, Seneca 1983; sponsored Peace Tent Nairobi 1985; arrested for trespass at South African consulate Houston for Apartheid protest 1985; co-founded Women for a Meaningful Summit 1986; member WILPF, winning its Jane Addams Award 2000; opposed Iraq War, torture.

Quotations

On Nixon’s war, 1973: “We cannot remain a free republic at home and an arrogant empire abroad.”

“Feminist logic expands the meaning of logic in that it involves persons and the human context in its knowing. It also honors such non-logical faculties as imagination, vision, and emotion. There is a woeful lack of imagination in U.S. foreign policy. Imagination invites one to envision possibilities other than the status quo. We have had the expansion of 'respectable thought' to include imagination and vision. Actually, they offer the world peace in the only place it can begin:  the heart, the mind, and the dream.” (“Women’s Search for Peace”, 1988, Univ. Iowa archives; photo law.utexas.edu)

Eleanor Farjeon

Overview

Eleanor Farjeon born Westminster, London, England February 13, 1881 (d. 1965). Pacifist English poet and children’s storyteller. Leading poet of post-World War generation.

Quotations

O which of ye whose battle-cry is Hate
Will first in peace dare shout the name of Love?

(“Peace”; 1899 photo wikipedia)

Shirley Farlinger

Overview

Shirley Farlinger (née Tabb) born Toronto, Ontario, Canada January 24, 1930 (d. 2012). Canadian peace activist; poet and playwright; leader in Canadian Voice of Women (VOW), Pugwash Science for Peace; an editor Peace Magazine.

Quotations

“There are so many people of good will around the world and so many difficulties to be overcome that I think we will eventually see the end of war.” (McMaster Univ. presentation, Nov. 11, 2002; photo humphreymiles.com)

Marge Farmer

Overview

Marge Farmer (née Marjorie A. Squire) born September 29, 1928. Montessori teacher; founded Comité Hispano Montessori, Omaha, NE. Established Fundacion Corazon (Foundation with a Heart), Nicaragua; offered aid to Central American war refugees; participated in civil disobedience against SAC.

Quotations

"We have no children, but hope that our progeny will be peace, justice and love in the world." (War Resisters League 1991 Calendar, July 28; port. by husband, Bill, timmcmahan.com)

Mia Farrow

Overview

Mia Farrow born Los Angeles, CA February 9, 1945. American actress and humanitarian. As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, active in campaign for African children’s welfare, 2000. Campaigned against Darfur war, 2007; offered herself in exchange for captive UN worker, 2007. Narrated documentary on reconciliation in Rwanda As We Forgive, 2009; undertook 12-day fast for Darfur, 2013.

Quotations

“I am therefore offering to take Mr Jamous's place, to exchange my freedom for his in the knowledge of his importance to the civilians of Darfur and in the conviction that he will apply his energies toward creating the just and lasting peace that the Sudanese people deserve and hope for.” (Aug. 6, 2007; photo Wikipedia)