Mary Livermore (née Rice) born Boston, MA December 19, 1820 (d. 1905). American reformer; abolitionist; suffragist lecturer and journalist.
"How the certainty that war had ceased forever would loosen the brakes now held down of the wheels of the world's progress!" (autobio., p. 693; 1867 photo wikicom pd)
Angelica Edna Calò Livné born Rome, Italy August 27, 1955. Israeli peace advocate; educator for peace through art. Founded Beresheet L'Shalom (Beginning of Peace) Foundation, September 2001, and Rainbow dance theater for Palestinian and Israeli youth in Sasa, Galilee. Recipient of Assisi Peace Prize, 2004; Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.
"The most important message that we can give now to all the humanity is that difference is the richness, that dialog is so important now for everybody." (World People's Blog; photo Kolot)
Josefa Llanes Escoda born Dingras, Ilocos Norte, Spanish Philippines September 20, 1898 (d. 1945). “The Florence Nightingale of the Philippines.” Social worker and suffragist. Aided war prisoners of war, World War I. Philippines representative at WILPF Congress, Washington DC, 1924. Founded national Girl Scouts, 1937. Arrested and executed by Japanese.
“If the shoe were on the other foot and the Japanese soldiers were the ones suffering in prison, I would help them in the same way. I would do what I have to as a human being.” (daisakuikeda.org Maria Roxas; photo Wikipedia)
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.
"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 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.
"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 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.
“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)
Barbara Lochbihler born Obergünzburg, Bavaria, Germany May 20, 1959. Peace activist. WILPF Secretary General, 1992; head of Amnesty International Germany, 1999-2009; member of European Parliament, representing Green Party, 2009-present. Organized WILPF Women's Peace Train from Helsinki to Beijing, 1995. Criticized war in Chechnya.
"[O]vercoming poverty and exclusion remains the fundamental challenge in our struggle for human rights and sustainable peace." (“A Forward-Looking Retrospective”, Listening to Women For a Change, p. 9; photo peoplecheck.de)
Elsie Locke (née Freeman) born Hamilton, New Zealand August 17, 1912. (d. 2001). Author; historian; peace activist; communist; defended Maori rights; opposed conscription and nuclear weapons; co-founded Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which led to nuclear free zone; opposed Korean, Vietnam and Iraq Wars.
"I don’t like it when they’re trained for jungle warfare. We haven’t got any jungles to be warfaring in."
"The (first) Gulf War was about oil and if it had not been there, there wouldn’t have been all that action." (in Maureen Birchfield, "A Life of Elsie Locke." Peace Researcher, vol. 39, Jan. 2010; photo NZ Nat. Lib.)
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.
"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)
Ellen Margrethe Løj born Godesby, Denmark October 17, 1948. Danish peacemaker; delegate to UN, 2001-7; ambassador to Israel, 1987-92; UN Special Representative to Liberia, 2007.
"The core message of that landmark text 1325: sustainable peace is possible only with women's full participation, their perspectives, their leadership, their daily, equal presence and whatever is needed to make and keep the peace." (June 9, 2010, Global Open Day for Women & Peace, Monrovia Informer; photo EU at UN)
Sonja Lokar (née Baient) born Zagreb, Croatia, Yugoslavia March 16, 1948. Slovenian sociologist and peace activist. Member of Slovenian Parliament, 1986-90. Organized European Peace Caravan to stop Balkan hostilities, 1991. Executive Director of Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues, 2015.
“[P]rogress around the worst sorts of violence against women in politics was possible only because, at the end of the 20th century, the global women's movement was for the first time in the history of humankind, strong enough, organized enough, and ambitious enough to dare to question and even to reject women roles proscribed by the male dominated politics and to offer the project of transformative politics.” (iKNOW Politics, Dec. 10-14, 2007)
Elisa Lollini Agnini born Finale Emilia, Modena, Italy March 22, 1858 (d. 1922). Italian feminist pioneer; pacifist protested colonial war in Ethiopia 1896, invasion of Libya 1911; supported WILPF effort to end war 1915; suffrage leader; Socialist.
“The Women’s Association sends its adhesion to the Hague Congress, hoping that the efforts of the pacifists will make the fraternal spirit triumphant.” (April 17, 1917, WILPF Bericht Report. p. 211; photo Wikipedia)
Mary Anna Longstreth born Philadelphia, PA February 9, 1811 (d. 1884). Quaker absolute pacifist headmistress who founded Quaker girl's school Philadelphia 1829 at age 18; ran it until 1877; promoted Hampton Academy for Indians and Blacks; co-founded world’s first Women's Medical College Philadelphia 1850.
"I thought it right to impress upon my students the duty of considering the poor, relieving the distressed, and instructing the ignorant. . ." (quote and photo, Memoir, frontispiece, p. 182, 1886)
Isabel Longworth (née Swann) born Temora, Australia June 1, 1881 (d. 1961). Australian dentist. Peace activist; WILPF leader; lifelong socialist. Militant opponent of conscription during World War I. Secretary of Women’s Peace Army, 1915-19. Claimed responsibility for ending indentured labor in Fiji, 1916. As member of New Guinea Natives' Welfare Committee, sheltered sailors until working conditions on ships improved. Published pamphlet An Open Road to International Order, 1938. Established Newcastle branch of the Australian League of Nations Union, 1938; postwar, it became the Australian Association for the United Nations. Ran for House of Representatives as Scientific Socialist, 1946, 1949. Objected to compulsory salute of the flag in schools; opposed Korean War.
“My objective is to turn the United Nations Organization into a world government and eradicate all the present military powers. If this happened it would be the end of all wars.” (March 31, 1954 news, Josiah Cocking diary, p. 95; photo ancestry.com)
Kathleen Lonsdale (née Yardley) born Newbridge, Ireland January 28, 1903 (d. 1971). Eminent physicist; Quaker; president of WILPF and Pugwash Conference; led peace mission to USSR, 1951.
"To love one's neighbor as one's self is the only practical politics; it is, indeed, a condition of survival." ("Removing the Causes of War", p. 56; 1928 photo Wikipedia)
Claudia López Hernández born Bogotá, Colombia March 9, 1970. Colombian Senator 2014 Green Alliance advocate of peace and reconciliation; journalist.
“In the Senate I hope to bring rigor and courage, to replace and not only denounce the corrupt, to stop this infamous war and to build an inclusive and transforming peace.” (official site:about me; photo es.wikipedia)
Eleanor Louisa Lord born Salem, MA July 27, 1866 (d. 1956). Advocate of international arbitration; history and economics instructor Smith College.
"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 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.
"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)
Tegla Loroupe born Kutomwony, Lelan, West Pokot District, Kenya May 9, 1973. Kenyan athlete, world marathon champion, won NY Marathon 1994; founded Tegla Laroupe Peace Foundation 2003, bringing peace to warring tribes Turkana and Pokot; founded 10 km Peace Race for 2000 warriors 2006; Oxfam world tour appeal for Darfur 2007.
“[W]hen men fight, women and children suffer the most and that is why I take the responsibility to stand with the torch for peace on the arena of sports. I know well, that no matter the level of enmity, during sporting events people forget their differences and cheer as one team. My role as a woman is to take this opportunity as a good ground to preach reconciliation and install peace.” (World Pulse, Oct. 20, 2009; photo shortsupport.org)
Nikki Nojima Louis born Seattle, WA December 7, 1937. Japanese-American interned during World War II; WILPF playwright, "Word of Mouth: Speaking & Singing for Peace" & "Most Dangerous Women." (photo Local Access)
Women in Peace
is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of extraordinary, peacemaking women from around the world.
