Patricia Ford

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Overview

Patricia Ford, Lady Fisher (née Smiles) born North Down, Northern Ireland April 5, 1921 (d. 1996); first Irish woman member of British parliament; founded Women Caring Trust to rescue children from civil violence 1972.

Quotations

"[T]o help children and their families living in Northern Ireland most adversely affected by violence and community tension. The Trust. . . believes passionately that the best hope for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is on the ground and in the communities. . . [and to] promote cross community activities and reconciliation among children and young people." (Statement of purpose of the Women Caring Trust)

Shelagh Foreman

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Overview

Shelagh Foreman born September 10, 1934. Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award for co-founding Mass. Peace Action for Nuclear Freeze; opposed Iraq War.

Quotations

"[T]he cost in US, Afghan, and Pakistani lives and in billions of dollars is unacceptable—even more so when measured against the utter lack of results achieved." (Oct. 21, 2010 letter to Sen. Kerry; photo masspeaceaaction.org)

Randall Caroline Forsberg

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Overview

Randall Caroline Forsberg born Hunter, AL July 23, 1943 (d. 2003). Founded Nuclear Freeze movement 1980; MacArthur genius 1983.

Quotations

"If all countries upheld the ethic that the only just war—the only legally, morally acceptable use of force—was for defence, then there would be no war. We wouldn't need military defence. People would use non-violent means of correcting injustices—with protest, with civilian resistance." (Peace Magazine, p. 10, Aug. 1989; photo lewis.armscontrolwonk.com)

Hazel E. Foster

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Overview

Hazel E. Foster born Cleveland, OH February 14, 1885 (d. 1975). Professor; minister; educator. Social activist with organizations including Quaker Fellowship, the League of Women Voters, WCTU, SANE, ACLU, Jane Addams Peace Association, WILPF. Visited Gandhi, 1940-41; supported nonviolence of civil rights movement as teacher at Morehouse College.

Quotations

"I have wondered whether, now Gandhi has died, his ideas and ideals had died with him. You prove to me they have not." (letter to Martin Luther King, Jr., April 26, 1956; photo http://bit.ly/Kuo3ye)

Ursula Franklin

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Overview

Ursula Franklin born Munich, Germany September 16, 1921. Canadian scientist; physics professor and philosopher of science; Quaker pacifist; eighteen months in a Nazi work camp World War II; leader of antiwar CanadianVOW; opposed NATO and Vietnam War; promoted conscientious objection; Pearson Peace Medal.

Quotations

"Peace is not the absence of war—peace is the absence of fear." (The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, p. 32, 2006)

"The struggle for women's rights and the opposition to militarism in all its forms are two sides of the same coin." (The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, p. 102, 2006; photo Wikipedia)

Louise Franklin-Ramirez

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Overview

Louise Franklin-Ramirez born Washington DC September 28, 1905 (d. 2003). Peace activist; teacher; began protests at age 12 against Armenian holocaust; founded Toys for Peace campaign; opened stores without war toys; opposed nuclear weapons; mapped 22,000 US nuclear sites; co-founded D.C. Gray Panthers' "Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee 1981 which brought Hibakusha annually; arrested for Vietnam protests; last arrested age 94 at Supreme Court protesting death penalty 2000, arrested Fort Benning, GA, protesting School of Americas; protested Iraq war age 96; Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award 1999.

Quotations

“The future of humanity may well rest on our ability to turn the slogan of 'A Nuclear-Free Future' into reality.” (“Deadly Legacy,” with husband John Steinbach; photo prop1.org)

Marian Franz

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Overview

Marian Franz born Newton, KS October 12, 1930 (d. 2006). Mennonite; tax resister; founder of Peace Tax Fund, 1982; Conscience and Peace Tax International, 1994.

Quotations

"(War taxes) kill twice. First, they directly enable war. . . Second, taxes allocated for war represent a distortion of priorities. Money is taken away from the important work of healing and is spent to destroy and kill." (photo Peace Tax Fund)

Clara Fraser

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Overview

Clara Fraser (née Goodman) born East Los Angeles, CA March 12, 1923 (d. 1998). Radical feminist, socialist, internationalist and opponent of all wars. Founded Radical Women (RW), 1967; opposed Israeli settlements and occupation of West Bank.

Quotations

"What better fate can a person carve out than participation in the emancipation of humanity?" (Freedom Socialist Party, May 1, 2003)

"I am a socialist feminist. I believe we live in a corrupt, ugly, vicious and doomed society, a society that cannot last in its present form because it will go up in nuclear holocaust, if not in annihilation of people in some other horrendous form." (Freedom Socialist Party, April 1998; photo Red Letter Press)

Monica Frassoni

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Overview

Monica Frassoni born Veracruz, Mexico September 10, 1963. Secretary General of Young European Federalists, 1985-87. Italian member of European Parliament, 1999-2009; co-chair European Green Party/European Free Alliance, 2009-. Opponent of nuclear weapons; proponent of nonviolence.

Quotations

"After the experience the World has had in Iraq, we stress the need to better co-ordinate peace efforts with the United Nations. The UN should be reformed to become an efficient instrument for peace and disarmament. Unilateral action and pre-emptive war strategies—as promoted by the United States—have proved to be a recipe for disaster." (EurActiv, Dec. 14, 2013; photo europeangreens.edu)

Marcia Freedman

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Overview

Marcia Freedman (née Prince) born Newark, NJ May 17, 1938. American-Israeli Peace activist; co-founded Israel Women in Black 1988; founding president Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace 2002; member of Knesset 1974-77; socialist.

Quotations

“So as a feminist I am saying that the effect of settling international conflicts by war is a male thing. Therefore, as a feminist I become a One-Worldist, I become a Pacifist.” (“On Women and War” interview with Barbara Rubin; photo Knesset.gov.il)

Elisabeth Freeman

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Overview

Elisabeth Freeman born Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England September 12, 1876 (d. 1942). Anglo-American militant suffragist and pacifist who opposed World War I; organized spectacular suffrage protests including leading a yellow gypsy wagon in DC; NAACP Anti-Lynching Campaign in Texas 1916; first women’s train on presidential campaign 1916.

Quotations

On her beginning as a militant activist: "I saw a big burly policeman beating up on a woman, and I ran to help her, and we were both arrested. I found out in jail what cause we were fighting for." (elizabethfreeman.org; c.1913 photo Wikipedia)

Emmy Freundlich

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Overview

Emmy Freundlich (née Emma Kögler) born Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic June 25, 1878 (d. 1948). Austrian Social Democratic politician. Pacifist; suffragist; leader of cooperative movement. Member of Austrian National Assembly, 1919-20. Delegate and vice president, World Economic Conference, Geneva, 1927. Only woman to serve on League of Nations Economics Committee, 1928. Arrested during government crackdown on socialists, 1934; exiled, 1939. Co-founded Austrian Committee for Relief and Reconstruction, 1943. Opposed World War I.

Quotations

"Housewives denied the ballot, the shopping bag should and can be your ballot." (1913, in Andrea Ellmeier, “Frauenpolitik”; photo tagescalendaar.com)

Betty Friedan

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Overview

Betty Friedan (née Goldstein) born Peoria, IL February 4, 1921 (d. 2006). Feminist, author of landmark text The Feminine Mystique, 1963. Founded National Organization for Women (NOW), 1966; president of NOW, 1966-1970. Organized Women's Strike for Equality on 50th anniversary of women's suffrage, August 26, 1970. Organized campaign of civil disobedience at White House, 1992.

Quotations

"Men, also, have in them enormous capacities that they have to repress and fear in themselves, living up to this obsolete and brutal man-eating, bear-killing, Ernest Hemingway, crewcut Prussian sadistic, napalm all the children in Vietnam, bang-bang you're dead, image of masculinity, the image of all powerful masculine superiority that is absolute." (Jan. 29, 1970, US Senate hearings on Judge Carswell; 1960 photo Wikipedia)

Erni Friholt

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Overview

Erni Friholt born Lilienfeld, Austria November 27, 1936. Swedish Gandhian peace worker, advocate of nonviolence.

Quotations

"Historical experience shows that the exercise of military power never solves a conflict but instead creates new conflicts with still more sufferings." (Critique of European Union, Dec. 3, 2005; photo World People's Blog)

Claudia Fritsche

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Overview

Claudia Fritsche born Liechtenstein July 26, 1952. Ambassador to UN 1990-2002, US 2000-02.

Quotations

"Women have to play an active part in conflict-resolution and peace-building. . . Women hold perspectives on conflict that differ from those of men. To a greater degree, women seek consensus." (Princeton, April 3, 2002; photo allgov.com)