January 13

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1810 Ernestine Rose born Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland (d. 1892). American Jewish abolitionist and suffragist. Founded utopian human rights organization Association of All Classes of All Nations, 1835.

  • 1865 Theodora Wilson Wilson born Kendal, Cumbria, England (d. 1941). English absolute pacifist; Quaker. Leader of war resisters. Author of 62 books, novels, and religious stories. Early member of Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR); founding member of WILPF.

  • 1866 Emilia Broomé born Jönköping, Sweden (d. 1925). Founded Swedish Women's Peace Organization, 1898; WILPF leader; first woman in Swedish national legislature, 1914.

  • 1888 Gertrude Carman Bussey born New York, NY (d. 1961). Philosophy professor; WILPF international president, 1949-52; author of WILPF organizational history, 1965.

  • 1919 Celia M. Hunter born Arlington, WA (d. 2001). Quaker environmentalist and conservationist; woman pilot of warplanes during World War II. Assisted with postwar rebuilding in Finnish Lapland; won highest awards of Sierra Club and Wilderness Society.

  • 1947 Jill Ann Boskey born Newark, NJ (d. 1999). Antiwar activist and attorney. Led 5 Women Against Daddy Warbucks in shredding draft files at Rockefeller Center, 1969. Member of Students for Democratic Society. Co-founded feminist Diana Press, Baltimore.

  • 1949 Manuela Dviri born Padua, Italy. Italian-Israeli peace activist; author and playwright. Protested war after the death of her soldier son, 1998; received Peres Award for Peace and Reconciliation for saving Palestinian children, 2005.

  • 1967 Masha Gessen born Moscow. Russian-American activist and journalist; chronicler of nonviolent protests.

  • 1968 Farah Pandith born Srinigar, India. Appointed first US State Dept. Special Representative to Muslim Communities, 2009.

  • 1976 Nariman Tamimi born Palestine. Nonviolent resister to Israeli occupation at Nabi Saleh; repeatedly arrested and beaten.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1897 Mrs. R.C. Alexander rescued Gandhi from mob, Durban.

  • 1915 First meeting of Fellowship of Reconciliation, London. Lucy Gardner served as Secretary.

  • 1919 22 suffragettes arrested in Watchfire protest, Washington DC.

  • 2013 22 South Korean women’s groups declared: “We want a nuclear-free peaceful world. . . Nuclear security must start with the elimination of nuclear weapons.”

  • 2013 Artist Coco Fusco performed antiwar piece “Observations of Predations in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist” at Studio Museum, Harlem, NY.

  • 2014 Syrian women demanded peace at Geneva. “We cannot remain silent regarding events in Syria, such as daily death, massive destruction, starvation, displacement of hundreds of thousands of families.”