June 26

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1839 Emma Miller born Chesterfield, England (d. 1917). Australian peace activist; suffragist; labor reformer. As President of Queensland Women's Peace Army, opposed conscription in World War I.

  • 1892 Pearl S. Buck born Hillsboro, WV (d.1973). Humanitarian; author; critic of US Cold War militarism. Founded adoption agency for Asian children, 1949. Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature, 1938.

  • 1892 Helen Marston Beardsley born San Diego, CA (d. 1982). Quaker peace leader and organizer. Founded WILPF San Diego chapter, 1924; co-founded San Diego Peace Center. Socialist work with Mexican immigrants and farm workers; marched against Vietnam war at age 89; on Nixon's enemies list, 1971.

  • 1924 Ruth Weiss born Fürth, Bavaria. German pacifist; author and journalist; authority on African cultures; opposed Apartheid. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

  • 1951 Anna Šabatová born Brno, Czechoslovakia. Peace activist. Founded VONS (Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted), 1978. Awarded UN Human Rights Prize for signing Charter 77 based on nonviolent protest, 1998.

  • 1952 Bahia Hariri born Sidon, Lebanon. Sunni Moslem; member of Lebanese Parliament, 1992-present; Minister of Education, 2008-09. UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, 2000. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

  • 1954 Catherine Samba-Panza born Fort Lamy, N’Djamena, Chad. “Mother Courage.” Lawyer and human rights advocate; Mayor of Bangui, 2013-14. First woman president of Central African Republic, 2014.

  • 1967 Ghada Jamsheed born Bahrain. Human rights activist. Founded Women’s Petition Committee, 2001. Arrested and sentenced one year for advocating women’s rights, 2014.

  • 1987 Maryam al-Khawaja born Damascus. Bahraini human rights activist. International spokesperson for Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Women's peacemaking on this day