Women peacemakers born today

1917 Rosemary Lynch born Phoenix, AZ (d. 2011). Franciscan nun; poet and storyteller. Founded Nevada Desert Experience, 1982; founded nonprofit organization Pace e Bene teaching nonviolence, 1989.

1929 Christa Wolf born Landsberg an der Warthe, Poland (d. 2011). Leading German writer; philosopher; feminist. Awarded Geschwister-Scholl Prize, 1987; co-founded International Culture of Peace, 1988.

1933 Unita Blackwell born Lula, MS. Civil rights leader; SNCC organizer; president of US-Chinese Peoples Friendship Association, 1976-83. Co-founded Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964; awarded MacArthur Genius grant, 1992.

Women's peacemaking on this day

1212 Clare of Assisi left home to take vow of poverty and found the Second Order of St. Francis, at Portuincula.

1871 1,000 Parisian women helped prevent the provisional government from firing upon its citizens, leading to the founding of the Paris Commune.
1896 Princess Wiszniewska founded International League of Women for Disarmament, Paris.

1906 French suffragists occupied Musée Social, Paris.
1970 Media Women and other feminist groups held sit-in at Ladies' Home Journal office, Manhattan.
1995 Russia blocked Mothers’ March of Compassion against Chechen War and arrested marchers.
2003 Cuba arrested 75 Ladies in White for nonviolent protest against political detentions.

2003 Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned as legal adviser to the British Foreign Office in protest of the Iraq War. "Unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression."
2009 In New York, seven members of the Granny Peace Brigade were arrested for blocking US Military Recruitment Center with crime scene tape in an Iraq War protest.
2011 Ilse Ivana Velásquez Rodríguez was kiled in a teacher's strike, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
2015 In Washington DC, Code Pink held Spring Rising as a spring cleaning of war crimes. "We’ll dust away the cobwebs of war."