Elizabeth Neall Gay

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Overview

Elizabeth Neall Gay born Bucks County, PA November 7, 1819 (d. 1907). Quaker; pacifist; abolitionist. Delegate to first World's Anti-Slavery Convention, where women were denied a say, London, 1840.

Quotations

"I am proud to have been one of that cursed yet thrice blessed little band who 'braved the fury of the seabed' to attend a Christian Anti-Slavery gathering which drunkards and gamblers were welcomed & women and honest truthful Women rejected and insulted." (Letter to Elizabeth Hussey Whittier, Aug. 16, 1841; photo Mass. Hist. Soc.)

Edna Fischel Gellhorn

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Overview

Edna Fischel Gellhorn born St. Louis, MO December 18, 1878 (d. 1970). President League of Women Voters; promoted world unity through League of Nations and UN; leader in suffrage and racial integration.

Quotations

"I'm glad I was born in a time of stress. And I have infinite faith in the future." (1953, Dict. Mo Bio 332; photo Bryn Mawr lib.)

Lillian Meller Genser

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Overview

Lillian Meller Genser born Detroit, MI January 31, 1920 (d. 2006). Pioneering peace educator. Director, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University, 1970-90. Began Visions of Peace children’s art show, 1986. Introduced companion to pledge of allegiance.

Quotations

“I pledge allegiance to the world
To care for earth and sea and air
To cherish every living thing
With peace and justice everywhere.”

(World Pledge Project, Wayne State Univ.; 1988 photo ebay)

Susan George

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Overview

Susan George (née Akers) born Akron, OH June 29, 1934. Political scientist; head of Transnational Institute; lifelong antiwar activist, opposing French war in Algeria, Vietnam War; early concern with disarmament; major focus on world poverty; active with Greenpeace.

Quotations

“What do the rich owe to the poor, the fortunate to the less fortunate, the educated to the uneducated; the healthy to the ill? Do these obligations, if there are any, apply only to the people in our own societies, to our own countries, or to everyone, everywhere? The kind of globalisation we choose—and I assure you that it is a choice, not a fate to which we must submit—will determine whether there is peace or war. In my mind, there can be no peace without justice.” (“globalization and Peace”, March 10, 2008)

“[S]ome people in the alter-globalisation movement reproach me for my positions on non-violence. . . hundreds of people over months to organize successful demonstrations and political activities. One of my books. . . Another World is Possible If. . . One of the 'ifs' concerns maintaining a strict policy of non-violence.” (TNI “Japanese Welcome”, June 28, 2008; photo thii.org)

Zelma Watson George

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Overview

Zelma Watson George born Hearn, TX December 8, 1903 (d. 1994). Musician; sociologist; African-American delegate to UN General Assembly, 1961; attendee African Ban The Bomb conference, Ghana, 1963; recipient of Dag Hammarskjöld Award, 1961; recipient of Dahlberg Peace Award, 1963; early advocate of UN.

Quotations

"And the fourth world, now, the poorest of the underdeveloped nations, it's the fifth world, the women of the world." (Jim Standifer interview, Nov. 23; photo Black Professionals Assn.)

Virginia Gildersleeve

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Overview

Virginia Gildersleeve born New York, NY October 3, 1877 (d. 1965). Internationalist; historian; dean of Barnard College. Early promoter of League of Nations; helped draft UN charter and UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Drafted Preamble of UN Charter, "We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which in our time has brought untold sorrow to mankind. . . "

Quotations

"In the right sort of patriotism lies the hope of the world. . . Let us teach them not to hate, not wish to harm or dominate other peoples, but to love their own land and to help her play her part as a good citizen of the world." (Feb. 22, 1918, Memoirs p. 124; photo http://bit.ly/wlHF5k)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Overview

Charlotte Perkins Gilman born Hartford, CT July 3, 1860 (d. 1935). Feminist author and sociologist who co-founded Women’s Peace Party 1915.

Quotations

"In warfare, per se, we find maleness in its absurdist extremes. Here is. . . the whole gamut of basic masculinity, from the initial instinct of combat, through every form of glorious ostentation with the loudest possible accompaniment of noise." (Our Man-Made World, 1911; photo Wikipedia)

Ann Fagan Ginger

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Overview

Ann Fagan Ginger born July 11, 1925. American Professor of international law, esp. law of peace; founding director of Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute 1964; author of Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal 1996; got US Supreme Court acquittal of nuclear protesters; supported conscientious objection to Vietnam War; opposed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Quotations

"The Cold War, that long, devastating, costly war, which now, many people agree, was unnecessary." (International and Comparative Law Journal, 1992)

Mary Willcox Glenn

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Overview

Mary Willcox Glenn born December 14, 1869 (d. 1940). Social worker; associate of Jane Addams; founder of American Committee of the International Migration Services, 1924; hospitals for refugees, 1930.

Quotations

"The will to peace must produce more than treaties and leagues. . . It must make the competitive yield to the co-operative spirit." (Prelude to Peace, May 1915)

Jackie Goldberg

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Overview

Jackie Goldberg born Los Angeles, CA November 18, 1944. Student peace activist, teacher, and politician. Founded Campus Women for Peace at UC Berkeley, 1962. Protested atomic bomb shelters; arrested for sit-in for San Francisco hotel employee desegregation, 1963; arrested as leader in Free Speech movement; arrested in support of striking janitors, 2000. Sponsored teach-in on Vietnam War. President, Los Angeles School Board. Member of California State Assembly, 2001-06.

Quotations

“I have been the eternal optimist—I have seen too much change in my life not to believe that there's more to go. I have infinite faith that those things which I consider to be progressive are going to ultimately win.” (interview, National Security Archive; photo socialuplift.org)

Selena Gomez

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Overview

Selena Gomez born Grand Prairie, TX July 22, 1992. American pop singer and actress. UNICEF Ambassador mission to Ghana 2008, Chile 2011.  

Quotations

"We're helping to save the lives of children all over the world."

"The situation [in the Sahel] is urgent and these children need our immediate help. I want people to know that together with UNICEF, we have the ability to prevent their deaths." (April 12, 2012; quote & photo UNICEF)

Audrey Goodfriend

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Overview

Audrey Goodfriend born Bronx, NY November 14, 1920 (d. 2013). American anarcho-pacifist who rejected all violence; co-editor of Why?, which opposed WWII, 1942; organized against conscription in Korean War; co-founder teacher at radical Walden School, Berkeley 1958; never voted.

Quotations

“[T]thinking about Spain and how the anarchists entered the government, and all the things that beset the anarchists in Spain, and realizing how many people had been killed, had died—I just realized that change is not going to happen through violence. That was a very pivotal thing for me.” (Andrew Cornell, “A New Anarchism Emerges”; photo arivista.org)

Amy Goodman

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Overview

amy-goodman.jpg

Amy Goodman born Bayshore, NY April 13, 1957. Investigative journalist who founded "Democracy Now! The War & Peace Report" 1996; beaten by Indonesian troops while reporting Dili Massacre in Timor 1998; arrested 2003 for antiwar protest at White House.

Quotations

"Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful." ("Exception to the Rulers", 2004; photo Wikipedia)

Naomi Goodman

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Overview

Naomi Goodman (née Ascher) born New York, NY August 26, 1920 (d. 2005). Headed Jewish Peace Fellowship; feminist and pacifist author who supported conscientious objection and nonviolence; opposed war in Balkans, conscription, capital punishment, arms race, nuclear weapons, Israeli occupation.

Quotations

On the Jewish Peace Fellowship: "A Jewish voice in the peace community and a peace voice in the Jewish community." (Murray Polner at Oct. 22, 2005 memorial)

Amanda Gorman

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Overview

Amanda Gorman born Los Angeles, California March 7, 1998. Gorman is an American poet and activist whose work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She published the poetry book “The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough” in 2015. She rose to fame in 2021 for writing and delivering her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Quotations

“I have to interweave my poetry with purpose. For me, that purpose is to help people, and to shed a light on issues that have far too long been in the darkness.”

Lynn Gottlieb

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Overview

Lynn Gottlieb born Bethlehem, PA April 12, 1949. Jewish Rabbi led Fellowship of Reconciliation peace initiatives; founded Jewish nonviolence group; only rabbi in Cairo to support lifting Gaza blockade 2010.

Quotations

"[A]s a person committed to nonviolence, I view the use of militarism by states or non-state actors to ensure security or resist occupation as a self-defeating strategy that promotes more violence and suffering and does not, in the end, result in well-being or peace for beleaguered populations." (Mondoweiss, Jan. 11, 2010; photo gazafreedommarch.org)