Hilde Frafjord Johnson

/

Overview

Hilde Frafjord Johnson born Arusha, Tanzania August 29, 1963. Norwegian anthropologist; politician. Member of Norwegian Parliament, 1993-2001; Minister for International Development, 1997-2005; UN representative to South Sudan, 2011-14. Active peacemaker in Sudan, leading to peace, 2005; Deputy Executive UNICEF, 2007-11.

Quotations

"The mass killings must stop and the people in the area need to join together in putting an end to this merciless and lethal cycle of violence once and for all."(UNMISS, December 2011; photo newsinenglish.no)

Mary Ann White Johnson

/

Overview

Mary Ann White Johnson born Westmoreland, NH August 24, 1808 (d. 1872). Abolitionist; lecturer on physiology. Founding member of world's first nonviolence group, New England Non-Resistance Society, Boston, 1838. As matron at Sing Sing Prison, became advocate for prison reform.

Quotations

“We demand for women equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and exert her influence directly for the removal of all evils that afflict the race.” (Pennsylvania Freeman, June 12, 1852, in Beverly Palmer, ed., Letters of Lucretia Mott, p. 121; photo Mass. Hist. Soc.)

Carla Brooks Johnston

/

Overview

Carla Brooks Johnston born Rochester, NY April 2, 1940 (d. 2011). Civic reformer; professor of public policy; environmentalist. Led reform of Somerville, Massachusetts politics, 1966-72; co-founder and historian of Nuclear Freeze, 1980; mayor of Sanibel, Florida, 2005-07.

Quotations

"History tells us that women can be instrumental in creating a more equitable peacetime world, in redefining heroism, and in using fresh, creative, vital ideas to remold the intransigent institutions which have brought us war rather than conflict resolution." (Reversing the Nuclear Arms Race, p. 148; photo captivasanibel.com)

Mary Johnston

/

Overview

11.21 johnston crop.png

Mary Johnston born Buchanan, VA November 21, 1870 (d. 1936). Popular novelist; pacifist opponent of World War I; member of WILPF; member of Fellowship of Reconciliation; suffragist; pioneer against lynching; Theosophist.

Quotations

"We experienced family love, village, and tribal love, nation love, world love." (1919, Michael Forth, p. 322; photo 1901 Lib. Cong.)

Irène Joliot-Curie

/

Overview

Irène Joliot-Curie born Paris, France September 12, 1897 (d. 1956). Nobel Chemistry Prize 1930; Cold War pro-Communist pacifist; engaged feminist; suffragette; leader of World Women’s Committee Against War and Fascism 1934; Resistance to Nazis WWII; leader of pacifist Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF); supported Stockholm Appeal for Peace 1950; signed Russell-Einstein Call for Peace of Scientists 1955. Opposed use of nuclear material for bombs.

Quotations

On nuclear warfare and her mother, Marie Curie: "Its use for destruction seemed to [mother] a desecration. . . In her eyes any political consideration would not have been an excuse to use the atomic bomb." (encyclopedia.com; photo humantouchofchemistry)

Ann Jones

/

Overview

Ann Jones born Eau Claire, WI September 3, 1937. American antiwar journalist and author. Opponent of violence against women; published Kabul in Winter, 2007; War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, 2010.

Quotations

“The story of success in Afghanistan was always more fairy tale than fact—one scam used to sell another. . . a threefold failure: no peace, no democracy, and no reconstruction.” (Aug. 27, 2006, Tomgram)

“Nobody wants war, except profiteers and arrogant rules—almost exclusively men, often short—who imagine themselves heroic. We’re taught that war is inevitable, eternally embodied in our human nature. But the fact is that war is a human invention, and a fairly recent one at that…We live within the walls of the most aggressive nation in the world—the only one that practices preemptive war and coerces others to join its dubious coalitions against fabricated enemies. The only one that has made armaments and warfare the engine of its economy. Once a world leader, the United States now poses a danger to the whole planet.” (Veterans for Peace, Spring 2016, p. 2; photo nationinstitute.org)

Marion Patrick Jones

/

Overview

Marion Patrick Jones Glean O’Callaghan born Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad August 16, 1931 (d. 2016). Trinidadian international civil servant, social anthropologist and novelist; Quaker pacifist; in Britain as Marion Glean founding Secretary of Campaign Against Racial Discrimination 1964; in Paris as Marion O’Callaghan Director of UNESCO Social Science Programs 1965-90, including anti-Apartheid.

Quotations

“I have done some rifle shooting. But I’m a Quaker and I’m not going to shoot at anything but wooden ducks.” (The Guardian, Dec. 12, 1964; photo Wikipedia)

Mary Harris Jones

/

Overview

Mary Harris Jones AKA Mother Jones born Cork, Ireland May 1, 1830 (d. 1930). "The Miner’s Angel" ; American labor organizer, Socialist; led women’s strike 1900; convicted and exonerated of murder conspiracy 1913.

Quotations

"I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth wherever I please." (Linda Atkinson, Mother Jones, p. 3, 1978; photo motherjonesmuseum.org)

Rebecca Jones

/

Overview

Rebecca Jones born Philadelphia, PA July 8, 1739 (d. 1818). Quaker schoolmistress 1761-84; traveling minister and philanthropist who worked for Indian rights; opposed all wars and slave trade.

Quotations

"The injustice and iniquity of that [slave] trade, and the newspapers have continual strokes at it, so that I hope something will be done to put a stop to the diabolical business." (Jan. 5, 1788 letter to John Pemberton, in Memorials of Rebecca Jones, p. 144, 1848; photo 18th Century Women)

Birgitta Jonsdottir

/

Overview

Birgitta Jónsdóttir born Reykjavík, Iceland April 17, 1969. "Poetician" and activist. Organized Art Against War protest against Iraq War. Member of Icelandic Parliament for Citizens Party, 2009-13, and Pirate Party, which she founded, 2013-present. Led campaign to support whistleblowing for free speech. 

Quotations

Mountains of starved children
shiny bones
flesh torn off the bodies

Shocked and awed
by the images of mothers
miscarrying their unborn children

Shocked and awed
by the silent fear
countless civilians
dead dead dead

("The Horror of War", March 14, 2003)

Barbara Jordan

/

Overview

Barbara Jordan born Houston, TX February 21, 1936 (d. 1996). African-American civil rights activist; lawyer and politician. Member of US House of Representatives, 1973-79.

Quotations

“The resolution of disputes by peaceful means rather than violent means is a preferred view widely shared. . . One must ask, how serious is our commitment to peace?”

June Jordan

/

Overview

07.09 jordan.jpg.png

June Jordan born Harlem, NY July 9, 1936 (d. 2002). Black poet and professor who opposed Vietnam War and Gulf War. Freedom rider in civil rights movement.

Quotations

they said this
was their quest for peace
They blew up your homes
and then
they said this was brilliant
military accomplishment and this was done
they said in the name of self-defense they said
that is the noblest concept
of mankind isn’t that obvious?
("Apologies to Lebanon." 1982; photo Wikipedia)

Helen Joseph

/

Overview

Helen Joseph (née Fennell) born Easebourne, West Sussex, England April 8, 1905 (d. 1992). South African nonviolent anti-Apartheid protester; led march of 20,000 women in protest against pass laws Pretoria 1956; first South African put under house arrest.

Quotations

"I. . . don’t doubt for a moment that the revolution will result in a nonracial society. . . White and black together. And it works." (1987 interview with Diana Russell; photo gauteng.net)

Biljana Jovanovic

/

Overview

Biljana Jovanovic born Belgrade, Yugoslavia January 28, 1953 (d. 1996). Yugoslav Serbian poet, playwright and novelist; feminist. Early critic of communist repression, 1960s; opposed breakup of Yugoslavia and nationalist wars that followed. Co-founded antiwar Civil Resistance Movement, 1992.

Quotations

"[V]iolence begets more violence and always turns against its instigators first." (b92 interview, November 1, 2013)

Malalai Joya

/

Overview

Malalai Joya born Farah, Afghanistan April 25, 1978. Called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." Opposed warlords, Taliban, Karzai and US occupation; youngest member of parliament, 2005, from which she was dismissed for criticism.

Quotations

"I don't fear death, I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice." (Independent, Aug. 5, 2009; photo Wikipedia)

Ashley Judd

/

Overview

Ashley Judd born Granada Hills, CA April 19, 1968. Film actress appointed Global Youth Aids Ambassador 2003; documentary on AIDS in India 2007; two missions to Congo against genocide and rape.

Quotations

"The empowerment of girls and women is an essential tool to preventing the HIV/AIDS emergency from exploding any further." (March 13, 2007, Mumbai; photo hairpedia.com)

Juliana of the Netherlands

/

Overview

Juliana of the Netherlands born The Hague April 30, 1909 (d. 2004). Queen, 1948-1980. One of first acts as ruler was to end war in Dutch East Indies and grant Indonesia independence. Opposed Apartheid, 1949; supported UN and European Unity; criticism of NATO led to split with husband. Sent children to pacifist International Fellowship of Reconciliation School at Bilthoven.

Quotations

"The greater the misery caused by the losses we have sustained, the more deeply do we feel the fraternity of mankind." (Feb. 8, 1953 tribute to peacemaker Lester Pearson; photo electwomen.com)