Mary E. King

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Overview

Mary Elizabeth King born New York, NY July 30, 1940. Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the UN University for Peace, Costa Rica. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activist, 1962-66. Deputy director of American domestic volunteer agency ACTION, overseeing Peace Corps and VISTA, 1977-81. Awarded Jamnalal Bajaj International Prize for Gandhian work, 2003; El-Hibri Peace Education Prize, 2009; James Lawson Award for Nonviolent Achievement, 2011.

Quotations

“Since nonviolent resistance is based on an understanding of power more profound than is military force, the dogs of war are less likely to be unleashed as more societies learn, and with greater accuracy, of the power of nonviolent action.” (“Waging Peace”, Bulletin Peace Studies Inst., 2006, p. 20; photo Wikipedia)

Barbara Kingsolver

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Overview

Barbara Kingsolver born Annapolis, MD April 8, 1955. American author and biologist. Protested Vietnam War; self-exiled during Gulf War, 1990. Joined antiwar organization Not In Our Name, 2003. Published anti-colonial novel The Poisonwood Bible based on her childhood experiences in the Congo, 1999. Received Dayton Literary Peace Prize Distinguished Achievement Award, 2011.

Quotations

“I fear the sound of saber-rattling, dread that not just my taxes but even my children are being dragged to the cause of death in the wake of death.” (“And our flag was still there”, Sept. 25, 2001)

Maxine Hong Kingston

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Overview

Maxine Hong Kingston born Stockton, CA October 27, 1940. Author; peace activist. Arrested for White House antiwar protest, 2003.

Quotations

"The First Precept, which is a vow against killing: 'I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.'" (Intro, Veterans of War; photo LA Times books)

Helen Kinnee

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Overview

Helen Kinnee born December 25, 1913 (d. 2005). Peace activist; led weekly vigil against Titan missile in Chico, CA.

Quotations

"Something has to be done. Perhaps one person alone can’t change things. But one person makes a small ripple and other people make ripples which affect yet more people, until altogether, the ripples make one enormous wave whose power cannot be ignored." (Code Pink Calendar, Tokyo, June 2, 2006; photo newsreview.com)

Hinda Kipnis

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Overview

Hinda Kipnis born New York, NY September 20, 1931. Raging Granny Seattle; arrested 2015 for chaining herself in rocking chair with 5 other Grannies to block Seattle Terminal 5; protested World Trade Organization 1999.

Quotations

“Oh, Y2K, the chips, the chips are falling
In nuclear plants, both here and ‘cross the sea.
Four hundred plus reactors are waiting.
It’s not yet known where me-eltdowns will be.”

(Seattle Raging Grannies songs Y2K; photo Trondheim king.no)

Freda Kirchwey

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Overview

Freda Kirchwey born Lake Placid, NY September 26, 1893 (d. 1976). Editor and publisher of The Nation 1937-1955; WILPF representative at UN 1955-9 supporting Universal Declaration of Human Rights and disarmament; pacifist in World War I; opposed nuclear weapons; critic of strategic bombing, as in Korean War.

Quotations

"A force which subordinates everything to the job of killing the enemy becomes an enemy itself." (The Nation, 1952; photo African American Registry)

Sally Kirkland

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Overview

Sally Kirkland born Manhattan, NY October 31, 1944. Antiwar actress. Protested Vietnam War with first naked role on New York stage, “Sweet Eros”, 1968. Opposed Iraq War in Artists for Winning Without War. Hollywood parade for world peace, 2006.

Quotations

“I wished to oppose my nakedness to the intimate realism of Vietnam, in itself only symptomatic of the corruption and hypocrisies of our time.” (people.com/people/archive, Apr. 4, 1988)

“I'm opposed to the Vietnam War, and you can't carry a gun on a naked body.” (Paul Rowlands interview, Nov. 27, 2013; photo TMZ)

Florence Cross Kitchelt

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Overview

Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt born Rochester, NY December 17, 1874 (d. 1961). Socialist; sole woman on League of Nations Health Committee, 1924-30; head of Conn. League of Nations Association, 1924-44; promoted Model League of Nations; associate of Jane Addams.

Quotations

"I am more than ever convinced that the roots of both peace and war are economic. . . When, instead of fighting for the supplies which they so vitally need, the Nations will get together and apportion them so that each will get a share, the day of war will be over." (Boston Globe, Oct. 17, 1926; 1911 photo Schlesinger Lib.)

Mabel Hyde Kittredge

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Overview

Mabel Hyde Kittredge born Boston, MA September 19, 1867 (d. 1955). Pacifist expert on homemaking; started school lunches NYC 1901; headed World War I child feeding program in France and Belgium for Hoover; Ford Peace ship 1915; co-founder of WILPF; mission to USSR 1920.

Quotations

"It is not goodwill which distinguishes this Commission. . . It is the fact that scientific organisation has been made the servant of goodwill. The significance of that is like a kindly light on the battlefields of Europe. We have admired the organisation of war, its supreme technical efficiency. Here is an organisation created out of nothing over night by democrats, and its efficiency yields no point to the best disciplined institutions of the world. The larger message of the Belgian Relief Commission is that democracies have within them resources of ability which in our despondency we have attributed to autocracies alone. There is hope for freedom when such capacity is at its disposal." (The New Republic, July 31, 1915; 1918 photo flickr.com)

Flemmie Pansy Kittrell

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Overview

Flemmie Pansy Kittrell born Henderson, NC December 25, 1904 (d. 1980). African-American nutrition expert; professor of home economics. Credited with US Head Start program; introduced nutrition programs in many African and Asian countries. Served on WILPF International Executive Committee when policy refocused on issues of the Third World, colonial liberation, and racism, 1959-62.

Quotations

"I’d like to think of myself as an international citizen. . . I have enjoyed knowing that human beings all over the world respond in predominantly the same ways to the problems they meet." (Aug. 29-30, 1977 Merze Tate interview in Wini Warren, Black Women Scientists in the United States, p. 168; photo Wikipedia)

Naomi Klein

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Overview

Naomi Klein born Montreal, Quebec, Canada May 5, 1970. Canadian journalist, author and activist; opposed globalization, G8, G20 and Iraq and Afghan Wars; critic of Israeli occupation.

Quotations

"Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear." (The Nation, May 26, 2003)

"Peace is anti-capitalist. . . It is capitalism which wants war." (La Jornada, Dec. 18 2007)

"In places where daily life is like war, the people who are militantly confronting this brutality are the peace activists. Because we all want peace. But let's remember, it won't come without a fight." (The Nation, March 31, 2003; photo Wikipedia)

Molly Klopot

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Overview

Molly Klopot (née Eisenstat) born Detroit, MI May 16, 1919. Co-founder Raging Grannies; arrested in Times Square protest 2005; chair New York WILPF 1998; co-founder Not in Our Name: We Pledge to Resist (NION) against Iraq War 2001; Clara Lemlich awardee 2013.

Quotations

"We are at a very important point in the history of our country. It is our responsibility as patriots not to be silent." (at trial, April 20, 2006, New York Times, April 21, 2006)

“If you’re going to have a war on the world, you have to have a war on the people, you have to have a war on our civil liberties, you have to have a drive toward fascism. And we see that is what is happening.” (film by Gabrielle Zampanni, “Voices of Dissent”, p. 30; photo granny power)

Fay Honey Knopp

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Overview

Fay Honey Knopp born Bridgeport, CT August 15, 1918 (d. 1995). Quaker minister and peace activist. Gandhian pacifist; feminist; draft counselor; prison abolitionist; sexual abuse prevention pioneer. Founded Prison Research Education Action Program (PREAP), 1976. Organized Women Strike for Peace (WSP) protest against nuclear weapons, Geneva, 1962. Led Japanese Hiroshima survivors (hibakusha) on goodwill ambassadors' tour of US, 1964. Protested Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. WSP delegate to Paris Peace Conference on Vietnam, 1971.

Quotations

"It is the heart of life to have a real meeting with another human being." (circle.fundpeace.org/HONEYKNOPP.doc; photo ATSA)

Yuri Kochiyama

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Overview

Yuri Kochiyama (née Mary Yuriko Nakahara) born San Pedro, CA May 19, 1921. Interned in US concentration camp; lobbied for reparations; nominated for Nobel Peace Prize 2005; joined Puerto Rican nationalists' takeover of Statue of Liberty 1977.

Quotations

"The biggest challenge for world peace for the present and future must be to stop U.S. imperialist policies." (July 15, 2005 interview; photo wthellokitty.tumblr.com)

Esther Loeb Kohn

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Overview

Esther Loeb Kohn born Chicago, IL January 12, 1875 (d. 1965). American social reformer. 30-year resident of Hull House, which she managed in Jane Addams's absence. Active in Russian famine relief, 1919. Pacifist delegate to WILPF Conference, Vienna, 1921. Made trip to Russia to contact pacifist women. Active in rescuing refugees from Nazi Germany; opposed peacetime draft after WWII; against rearming Europe, 1949. (photo flickr.com)

Eva Kollisch

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Overview

Eva Kollisch born Vienna, Austria August 17, 1925. American poet and professor of comparative literature. Feminist lesbian peace activist; anti-Stalinist Marxist Trotskyite. Escaped Germany in Childrens’ Transport, 1940. Arrested for anti-Vietnam protests. Took part in Seneca Peace demo; Women in Black vigiler. Received Clara Lemlich Award for Social Activism, 2016.

Quotations

“Not our sons, not your sons, not their sons.” (antiwar sign in vigil, Greenwich Village, Kate Wigand interview, Feb. 2004, Smith College Oral History, p. 24)

“I, as a pacifist, abhor that war [in Palestine], and I abhor suicide bombings, of course, and military action and the destruction of people’s homes—it’s all a nightmare, and I always think, there’s got to be another way.” (Ibid., p.40; photo Hamiltonstone.org)

Margaret Konantz

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Overview

Margaret Konantz (née Rogers) born Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada April 30, 1899 (d. 1967). Canadian internationalist politician. As delegate to UN General Assembly Third Committee on Social Affairs, worked on resolution against racism, 1963; UN Assembly, 1965. Liberal member of Parliament, 1963-65. Chair of UNICEF Canada, 1965-67.

Quotations

On rejecting the Cold War: “I chose an organization working for peace, rather than preparing for war.” (1956, in Colin McCullough, Canada and the UN; photo wpgtdn.org)

Marian Kramer

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Overview

Marian Kramer born Baton Rouge, LA June 16, 1944. Civil rights leader; co-chair National Welfare Rights Union; CORE staff in 1960s; arrested for NOW civil rights protests; Black women delegate to Beijing conference; delegate Seventh Pan African Congress Uganda 1994; arrest for Detroit water as human right protest 2014.

Quotations

“The true crime is that thousands of people who are struggling to pay their bills are being deprived of a necessity of life.” (Grand Rapids Legal News, Nov. 20, 2015; photo speakersfor anewamerica.com)