October 15

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1830 Helen Hunt Jackson born Amherst, MA (d. 1885). Poet and author; defender of Native American rights; opposed Indian wars.

  • 1876 Teresa Billington-Greig born Preston, Lancashire (d. 1964). British nonviolent activist and thinker; self-described, "a feminist, a suffragist and a rebel"; founder of Women's Freedom League, 1907; held in Holloway Prison; fined for returning policeman's blow, 1906.

  • 1893 Rae Luckock born Arthur, Ontario (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.

  • 1923 Sally-Alice Thompson born Missouri. Peace activist. Member of Raging Grannies and Vets for Peace Albuquerque. Protested at President Bush’s ranch, Crawford, Texas, 2005.

  • 1959 Christine Christopherson born Darwin, Australia. Aboriginal artist. Arrested for trespassing on aboriginal land at Jabiluka uranium mine, 1999; jailed 12 days and compensated.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • Feast Day of St. Theresa (1515-82). "If we neither possess nor strive to obtain this peace at home, we shall never find it abroad."

  • 1915 Manifesto of Women at the Hague issued. "Our mission was to place before belligerent and neutral alike the resolutions of the International Congress of Women held at The Hague in April; especially to place before them the definite method of a conference of neutral nations as an agency of continuous mediation for the settlement of the war."

  • 1927 Eleanor Roosevelt: "The time to prepare for world peace is during the time of peace and not war."

  • 1967 67 women arrested in Stop the Draft protest at Oakland induction center, including Joan Baez, her mother, and children's author Emma Sterne; they were sentenced to 10 days.

  • 1967 Florence Beaumont immolated herself in Vietnam protest at Los Angeles federal building.

  • 1977 Mothers of the Plaza delivered petition of 24,000 signatures protesting the disappeared in Buenos Aires.

  • 1999 Sonia Picado of Costa Rica appointed chair of UN Human Rights investigation of Kosovo.

  • 2000 NOW's World March for Women, Washington DC.

  • 2009 Code Pink leader Jodie Evans spoke truth about Afghan War to President Obama, San Francisco.

  • 2015 PeaceWomen Around the Globe sponsored 10 Peace Tables on 3 continents.