Miriam Levering

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Overview

Miriam Levering (née Lindsey) born Pittsburgh, PA October 4, 1913 (d. 1991). Quaker pacifist. With her husband, headed lobby for Law of the Sea treaty, 1983; active in WILPF and World Federalists.

Quotations

“Of course, we have been involved in efforts to stop particular wars, like the Vietnam War. . . but we have also felt that a more fundamental blow to the war system would be struck by creation of alternative international institutions for peacemaking. And we felt the Law of the Sea Treaty was the best chance to make sane real progress we had had in many years.” (Chuck Fager, “A Friendly Letter”, Jan. 1982; photo amazon.com)

Lucy Biddle Lewis

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Overview

Lucy Biddle Lewis born Sharon Hill, PA September 26, 1861 (d. 1941). Quaker pacifist co-founder of American Friends Service Committee 1917 to provide young Quakers and other conscientious objectors to war an opportunity to perform a service of love in wartime; co-founder and President of WILPF 1922-24.

Quotations

"From its inception in 1915, the Women's International League, made up of groups of women from the warring and neutral countries, all impressed with the wrongfulness and futility of war, has had a vision of a better world of understanding. This has been discussed in all our international congresses from Zurich in 1919 to The Hague in 1922, where we met to declare our firm conviction that only a new peace can save the world from the chaos into which it is rapidly sinking." (Advocate of Peace, p. 248, 1923; photo Swarthmore.edu)

Sally Lilienthal

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Overview

Sally Lilienthal (née Lowengart) born Portland, OR December 19, 1919 (d. 2006). American peace advocate and philanthropist; sculptor. Founded anti-nuclear grantmaking organization Ploughshares Fund, 1981. Vice-chairwoman of Amnesty International the year it won the Nobel Peace Prize, 1977. Major supporter of Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 1997.

Quotations

"The possibility of a nuclear war was the very worst problem in the world." (San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 16, 2006; photo Wikipedia)

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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Overview

Anne Morrow Lindbergh born Englewood, NJ June 22, 1906 (d. 2001). Daughter of outstanding diplomat; wife of celebrated flyer; her anti-war book Wave of the Future (1940) regarded as pro-German.

Quotations

"There was nothing worse than 'the blind, stupid, terrible chaos of war.'" (The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries, p. xxvi, 1976; photo qcpages.qc.edu)

Lucy R. Lippard

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Overview

Lucy R. Lippard born Bronx, NY April 14, 1933. Antiwar art historian; feminist. Opposed Vietnam and Central America wars.

Quotations

"We live under a virtual dictatorship masquerading as a democracy and the corporate war machine has become infinitely powerful and profitable." (essay on Iraq War, October, Winter 2008; photo dada.compart-bremen.de)

Georgia Lloyd

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Overview

Georgia Lloyd born Winnetka, IL September 5, 1913 (d. 1999). Second-generation pacifist leader, daughter of Lola Maverick Lloyd; lifelong socialist; author of peace plans through history; led Campaign for World Government 1943-90; co-founder World Federalists 1947; active in WILPF and War Resisters League; NGO observer at UN founding San Francisco 1945.

Quotations

"Mankind must now face up to the amputation of absolute sovereignty by voluntary consent or by military conquest." (Searchlight on Peace Plans, p. 547, 1949; photo at her mother’s feet, chicagomag.org)

Lola Maverick Lloyd

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Overview

Lola Maverick Lloyd born Castroville, TX November 24, 1875 (d. 1944). Pacifist; suffragist; founder WILPF and Womens Peace Party, 1915; organized expedition of Ford Peace ship, 1915; mother of world government advocate Georgia Lloyd.

Quotations

"The new miracles of science and technology enable us at last to bring our world some measure of unity; if our generation does not use them for construction, they will be misused to destroy it and all its slowly-won civilization of the past in a new and terrible warfare. A new world war would engulf us all. Traditional diplomacy could not save us. It is an outworn method of manipulating international relations that evidently creates disharmony and confusion. International law is discredited. The League of Nations is inadequate." (World Government: A Democratic Start, 1938; photo Tales of the New World)

Robin Lloyd

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Overview

Robin Lloyd born Evanston, IL June 12, 1938. Third-generation woman peacemaker, granddaugher of Lola Maverick Lloyd, niece of Georgia Lloyd; filmmaker, Quaker peace activist; WILPF 100th anniversary performance “Talking with our Grandmothers”; co-founded Burlington Peace Center; nonviolence teacher; opposed war on drugs.

Quotations

“Women are frustrated. We are impatient watching wars metastasize around the planet, watching the elements of our sacred earth mined and melted into bullets and missiles.” (“Speaking Truth to Power at the UN”, April 1, 2015; photo with grandmother’s bust, Global Justice Ecology Project)

Belva Ann Lockwood

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Overview

Belva Ann Lockwood born Royalton, NY October 24, 1830 (d. 1917). Absolute pacifist; second female candidate for President, 1884, 1888; executive of Universal Peace Union; US delegate to Geneva conference on corrections, 1896; opposed Spanish-American war; advocated arbitration.

Quotations

"If nations could only depend upon fair and impartial judgments in a world court of law, they would abandon the senseless, savage practice of war."

"Let women have equal rights and with their pacific influence wars shall be unknown." (Peacemaker, Jan. 1888: 13; portrait by Lois Hatcher 1986)

Eleanor Louisa Lord

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Overview

Eleanor Louisa Lord born Salem, MA July 27, 1866 (d. 1956). Advocate of international arbitration; history and economics instructor Smith College.

Quotations

"The war problem has been, perhaps, the slowest to awaken popular feeling to anything like rebellion against warfare and its consequences." (speech "International Arbitration" at 1892 Columbian Exhibition, in Mary K. Engle, Congress of Women, p. 281, 1893; photo ibid.)

Mary Pillsbury Lord

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Overview

Mary Pillsbury Lord born Minneapolis, MN November 14, 1904 (d. 1978). Organizer and chair of US Commission on UNICEF, 1947; US representative to UN Human Rights Commission, 1953; US representative to UN General Assembly, 1953-61; President, International Rescue Committee.

Quotations

"To inform people of the needs of children in developing countries; to create an awareness of the diversity of human cultures, of the commonality of human needs and interests and of the responsibility to share in the world's resources and benefits." (Purpose of US Committee for UNICEF; photo abbottwashborn.com)

Rae Luckock

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Overview

Rae Luckock (née Margarette Rae Morrison) born Arthur, Ontario, Canada October 15, 1893 (d. 1972). Canadian peace activist; social reformer; feminist. One of first women elected to provincial legislature, 1943; first president Congress of Canadian Women, promoting friendship and visits to USSR and China, 1950. Once barred from US for alleged communism.

Quotations

"To save our children and families from the horrors of atomic war and from the cancer and leukemia producing effects of nuclear tests remains one of our most urgent tasks." (1956 National Congress of Canadian Women; photo collectionscanada. gc)

Florence Luscomb

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Overview

Florence Hope Luscomb born Lowell, MA February 6, 1887 (d. 1985). Suffragist; leader of WILPF; MIT-educated architect. Ran for Congress opposing Truman's anti-communism; opposed McCarthyism, Vietnam War, nuclear warfare; considered herself a "citizen of the world."

Quotations

"I will not answer compulsory questions by government inquisitors into matters of my conscience and opinions. . . I have nothing to hide. . . But I cannot and will not tear up the Constitution and its guaranteed liberties, won with blood and tears. I cannot and will not be a party with you in destroying American democracy." (to Senate Commission, 1955; photo http://bit.ly/K4IMIU)