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)

Emma Goldman

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Overview

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Emma Goldman born Kovno, Russian Lithuania June 27, 1869 (d. 1940). Pacifist anarchist feminist editor and orator; arrested 1917 for draft resistance; jailed 18 months; deported 1919.

Quotations

"The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or the woman's right to her soul." ("What I Believe." New York World, July 19, 1908; photo Wikipedia)

"The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed." ("Patriotism." Anarchism and Other Essays, 1917)

"All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the whole world to do the fighting for them." ("Address to the Jury", Mother Earth, July 1917; photo Wikipedia)

Vida Goldstein

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Overview

Vida Goldstein born Portland, Victoria, Australia April 13, 1869 (d. 1949). Australian feminist and opponent of draft; first woman in English-speaking world to run for office 1903; founding president of Women's Peace Army 1915 opposing World War I and draft; co-founder WILPF 1919; opposed nuclear weapons 1946.

Quotations

"Protest, to be effective, must be followed by resolute action." (1946, Friends of St. Kilda Cem., foskc.org/goldstein.htm)

"War is out of date. Under modern conditions it cannot accomplish what those who support war want it to accomplish. Every deadly weapon is met with the invention of a still more deadly weapon... We must aim at changing our social and industrial system so as to produce for use and not for profit."(womenworkingtogether.com.au, ch.7; photo awm.gov.au)

Claire Goll

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Overview

Claire Goll (née Aischman) born in Nuremberg, Germany October 29, 1890 (d. 1977). Franco-German pacifist; poet and novelist; journalist; opposed World War I.

Quotations

"The man was the brain, but women were the heart of the world. And yet we were silent. . . We bear the greater guilt." ("The Wax Hand", 1918, in Ingrid Sharp "Blaming the Women"; photo Jewish Women Ency.)

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)

Jane Goodall

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Overview

Jane Goodall born London, England April 3, 1934. Primatologist and animal rights activist; Gandhi-King Award for nonviolence 2001; UN Messenger for Peace 2002; International Peace Award 1999.

Quotations

"We humans, therefore, have a choice ahead of us, we don't have to go the aggressive route. We can push and push and push towards love and compassion. That is where I believe human destiny ultimately is taking us." (Reason for Hope, 1999; photo Wikipedia)

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

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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)

Willemien Posthumus-van der Goot

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Overview

Willemien "Willy" Posthumus-Van Der Goot born Pretoria, South Africa May 2, 1897 (d. 1989). Dutch pacifist; feminist leader; radio commentator; first woman economist. Active in the Assn. for Universal Peace (RUP), 1936; adopted Jewish child during WWII; chaired Dutch section of UN International Cooperation Year, 1965. Published Women Fought for Peace, 1961, and Peace with a Human Face, 1973. Founded part of International Peace Research Organisation's International Scientific Institute of Feminine Interpretation (ISIFI) in the belief "that women observe their own way in the confused state of the world," 1967.

Raisa Gorbachev

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Overview

Raisa Gorbachev (née Titarenko) born Rubtsovsk, Siberia January 5, 1932 (d. 1999). Russian first lady, 1988-1991; delivered commencement speech at Wellesley College on women's role in society, 1990.

Quotations

"No war, not even to punish an aggressor, is a good thing. . . The calamity of war, wherever, whenever and upon whomever it descends, is a tragedy for the whole of humanity." (I Hope, 1991; 1989 photo Wikipedia)

Nadine Gordimer

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Overview

Nadine Gordimer born Springs, Transvaal, South Africa November 20, 1923 (d. 2014). Awarded Nobel Literature Prize, 1991; early opponent of Apartheid; books banned; sheltered African National Congress leaders.

Quotations

"The writer is of service to humankind only insofar as the writer uses the word even against his or her own loyalties, trusts the state of being. . . to yield somewhere fragmentary phrases of truth, which is the final word of words, never changed by our stumbling efforts to spell it out and write it down, never changed by lies, by semantic sophistry, by the dirtying of the word for the purposes of racism, sexism, prejudice, domination, the glorification of destruction, the curses and the praise-songs." (Nobel acceptance speech, 1991; photo 2010 wiki by Bengt Boberger)

Mrinal Gore

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Overview

Mrinal Gore born Mumbai, India June 24, 1928 (d. 2012). “The Water Lady”, known for bringing water to slums. Led numerous Gandhi-inspired nonviolent protests, marches, sit-ins, pickets, and fasts, including women’s rolling-pin demonstration. Frequently arrested; imprisoned for 18 months and held in solitary confinement during government-declared Emergency, 1975. Socialist member of Parliament, 1977-80. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005. Sponsored International Conference on Peace and Justice in South Asia, 2006.

Quotations

“[The International Conference on Peace and Justice in South Asia is] geared towards creating a new world—a world based on Peace and Justice, free from violence and oppression—of all sorts and all hues.”

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.”

Eva Gore-Booth

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Overview

Eva Gore-Booth born Lissaway, Sligo, Ireland May 22, 1870 (d. 1928). Irish pacifist poet and dramatist; suffragist; WILPF member. Published essay on nonviolence during World War I, 1915; wrote nonviolent play "Fionavar".

Quotations

"[U]nless we make some vital change in our way of looking at life, every step in our advancing knowledge of science is a new danger for the human race, and that perfection in that knowledge might really and practically work out at the wiping out of humanity itself." (Religious Aspects of Non-Resistance, 1915; photo spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)

Déwé Gorode

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Overview

Déwé Gorode born Ponérihouen, New Caledonia June 1, 1949. Kanak independence leader using peaceful methods; poet and writer; Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2005; jailed 3 times; first woman university professor; Vice-President 2001-09; first woman in colonial government 1999.

Quotations

“Violated by the lecherous desires of senior men. Prestige, virility, war—male concepts for the Great House of men, built on the broad backs of women! Sharing, solidarity, humility, the word of women, conceived, nourished, and carried in our entrails of beaten wives.” (“Ute Murunu pelite fleur de cocotier”, 1994, p. 21; photo pacific-bookin.nc)

Hildegard Goss-Mayr

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Overview

Hildegard Goss-Mayr born Vienna, Austria January 22, 1930. Nonviolent peacemaker; honorary president of International Fellowship of Reconciliation; trained nonviolent revolutionaries in Madagascar and Philippines, 1986. Awarded Kreisky Human Rights prize, 1979; recipient Niwano Peace Prize, 1991; Nobel Prize nominee: 1979, 1987, 1995.

Quotations

"If I continue to live, I must give my life so that violence may be conquered." (Levellers blog, Dec. 27, 2006; photo http://bit.ly/AxTSag)

Midori Goto

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Overview

Midori Goto born Osaka, Japan October 25, 1971. Violinist; UN Messenger of Peace, 2007.

Quotations

"To become a United Nations Messenger of Peace. . . is an opportunity to champion the United Nations’ Millennium goals in a meaningful way. I look forward to being an advocate for the cause, working both through my own community engagement organizations and in collaboration with United Nations programs." (Sept. 21, 2007; photo UN 2007)