Autumn Peltier born Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada September 25, 2004. Wiikwemkoong First Nation “Water Warrior.” International Children’s Peace nominee. Addressed UN General Assembly at World Climate Conference, 2017.
“You can’t eat money, or drink oil.” (photo youtube)
Carol Pendell (née Embree) born Pasadena, CA January 20, 1921 (d. 2015). International President, WILPF 1980-86. Co-founded US-USSR Citizens Dialogue.
"Until we start working with people of other persuasions, we aren't going to get anywhere. The time where we can stand apart has long gone." (LA Times, Dec. 20, 1985; photo legacy.com)
Orlie Pell born Paris, France December 13, 1900 (d. 1975). American peace leader; philosopher of ethics, pupil of John Dewey. Co-founded nonviolence monthly Liberation. President, WILPF New York Chapter; Treasurer, War Resisters League; National President, WILPF, 1957-61. Arrested for refusing shelter against atomic attack drill, 1955. She said the atomic alert forced her to confront her “innermost self” and choose civil disobedience.
“Deep down inside: here I stand—I can do no other.” (Farrell, Spirit of the Sixties, p. 129; photo Swarthmore Peace)
Frances Fox Piven born Calgary, Alberta, Canada October 10, 1932. Sociology professor, social activist, and antiwar leader. Democratic Socialist; influential theorist of social change.
“I have considerable respect for non-violence, but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule. The reason I have respect for non-violence, is I think it helps to protect the protesters. . . Unless you have good reason for breaking the window, probably you shouldn’t do that. Unless it’s you know, a big part of your strategy.” (www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad1_1284522561#0DB9QCT6jB3BF0km.99)
“I think that we're at an alarming moment in American political development and maybe in world political development, because the United States is so influential. If the trends of the last thirty or forty years are not halted and reversed—and those trends include increasingly inequality, a crumbling public life, a disintegrating public infrastructure, an exhausted ecology, and a huge war arsenal, and more and more war making—then I'm rather gloomy about the prospects for the American future and the harm that the United States could do to the world.” (Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven, p. 255, 2011; photo gc.cuny.edu)
Mary Goddard Wigglesworth Pickering born Boston, MA October 16, 1838 (d. 1909). Anti-imperialist; published Liberty Poems, a collection of poetry opposing US imperialism, 1900.
And let thy flag, then honored, loved
Float o’er thy children free,
But never over conquered men,
Wherever they may be.
(“Arise Columbia”, Liberty Poems, p. 103)
Sara Hammond Palfrey born Boston, MA December 11, 1823 (d. 1914). American poet; pacifist opposed to Spanish-American War.
“The Holy Ghost is beginning to arouse the conscience of Christendom against the superstition of war. . .
’The strangers I sought in far-off lands
To plunder, to main, to slay,
To reave them of children and wives, their homes
In ashes so red to lay’
‘Ruffian! Murderer!’
‘Nay; for I followed the multitude,
When I went to do this evil;
The long streets cheered, and we called it War!’
‘Did Christ lead, or the devil?’”
(“Judgment to Come”, Springfield Republican, 1899 in Liberty Poems, p. 97)
Andrea Hofer Proudfoot born March 2, 1865 (d. 1949). Children’s writer, active in kindergarten movement. Sponsored Disarm! Disarm!, the adaptation of Bertha von Suttner’s Die Waffen Nieder, and Suttner's US tour, 1913; founded Von Suttner League and League for International Amity 1913. Wrote Internationalism, 1913. Delegate to Women's Peace Congress, 1915. Supported postwar aid to Austria.
On the Hague conference: “The hour is ripe for the peoples of this war-burdened Europe are so desperate over the agony and uncertainty in which they are constantly kept by the greedy ruling class that they are ready for the subject of disarmament as never before. . . And the women must kindle the sentiment among families and the masses. . . the women are the natural propagators. . . If we would down the war spirit at home and kill out the fear of war attack at home, we must kill out the spirit of hate from this side, where our war advisers so solemnly warn us our enemy is lurking.” (Advocate of Peace, 1915, vol. 75, p. 139)
Adrienne Pine born Birmingham, AL November 27, 1970. Professor of medical anthropology; peace activist. Protested US support of army coup of Honduras, 2009; arrested for occupying Venezuelan embassy against attempted coup, DC, 2019.
“If, by trying to protect the Venezuela embassy, I can help prevent my government from leading the world into this nightmare scenario, it will be well worth the potential damage to my career. Please join me.” (Common Dreams, May 16, 2019; photo American.edu)
Sylvia Plath born Boston, MA October 27, 1932 (d. 1963). Author, poet, and artist; life-long pacifist. At age of 13, wrote essay “A War to End All Wars”, 1945; “Youth’s Plea for World Peace”, 1950. Called Hiroshima “a sin.” Publicly opposed Korean War.
“For me, the real issues of our time are the issues of every time—the hurt and wonder of loving; making in all its forms—children, loaves of bread, paintings, buildings; and the conservation of life of all people in all places, the jeopardizing of which no abstract doubletalk of ‘peace’ or ‘implacable foes’ can excuse.” (London Magazine, 1962; photo britannica.com)
Elizabeth “Betty” Polster (née Henshaw) born PA February 28, 1925 (d. 2015). Quaker pacifist; war tax refuser. National President WILPF, 1965-69. Moved to Canadian Argenta Quaker refuge for conscientious objectors in Vietnam War protest, 1967; attended Selma March with personal friend Martin Luther King, Jr. Active in Canadian Voice of Women (VOW); co-clerk of Canadian Friends Yearly Meeting. Principal, Argenta Friends School, 1970-80.
“Those who protest government policies which involve us in war, which one believes to be wrong, are not cowards or anti-American–but are preserving our democracy.” (Oct. 1965, Beth Taylor, Excepts from Plain Language; photo Legacy.com)
Penelope “Penny” Patch born Manhattan, NY December 30, 1943. Civil rights worker, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 1962-65. First white woman to work for southern voter registration, often arrested. First arrested in Maryland sit-in, 1962; took part in anti-war protests Berkeley, 1965.
“Intangible Implications of our aims and our work. . . I see it as the opening of doors to people who have always seen closed doors, seen them so much and for so long that they don't see the doors any longer.” (National Guardian, Feb. 28, 1963)
“[A]ll people, however powerless they might seem, carry within themselves the ability to make great change.” (Deep in Our Hearts, p. 166; photo sistermentors)
Betty Peterson (née Farber) born Reading, PA November 27, 1917 (d. 2018). Canadian Quaker peace activist. Conscientious objector, WWI; protested Hiroshima. Moved to Canada after Vietnam War protests, 1975. Leader of Nova Scotia Voice for Peace; organized Women’s Peace Petition of 250,000, 1981. Wore t-shirt with 60 peace buttons on New York march against nuclear weapons, 1982. Protested NATO Brussels; Greenham Common; supported Innu women’s protest, Labrador, 1987. Held 88-day peace vigil against Gulf War, Halifax Library, 1990.
“Keep on keeping on. It helps you to keep your sanity, and it gives other people hope and calls them into action.” (Globe and Mail, Mar. 16, 2018; photo women social activists)
Maysoon Pachachi born Washington DC September 17, 1947. Co-founded Act Together: Women Against Sanctions and War with Iraq, 2000. Film director and editor; documented Iraq occupation and the Algerian war.
“What people needed was justice, but they got revenge and that creates more violence.” (Financial Times, March 12, 2013)
"I think there's a difference between being an optimist and having hope. And you can't lose hope." (quote and photo The Guardian, April 30, 2009)
Grace Paley born Bronx, NY December 11, 1922 (d. 2007). Pacifist author and professor; "combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist"; held one of the first meetings opposing Vietnam War in Greenwich Village; led seven-year vigil against war; peace visit to Hanoi, 1969; arrested at White House, 1978; organized Women & Life on Earth Conference, 1980; Pentagon Protest, 1980; opposed draft, nuclear weapons, Apartheid, central American intervention.
"The education in nonviolent direct action couldn’t have been learned without a war. It had to take a war for people to learn that things could be defied and resisted. I think that was a very important legacy of the peace movement." (Nonviolent Activist March 2000; photo http://bit.ly/wRrt44)
Esther Pank (née Sylar) born February 6, 1935 (d. 2010). Organized against nuclear arms; facilitated workshops on nonviolent civil disobedience; director of National Peace Foundation's Eurasian Leadership Program. Led movement which closed nuclear power plant Shoreham, New York; arrested in Vietnam War protest St. Patrick's Cathedral, 1974; received War Resisters League 29th Annual Peace Award, 1990.
Margarita Papandreou (née Margaret Chant) born Oak Park, IL September 22, 1930. Greek first lady. Organized international feminist anti-war conference Athens Nov. 1986; contributed to end of Cold War by visit to USSR 1987; democratic Socialist.
“Women are not at the peace table. We are not there where our commitment to peace, our capacities to find solutions through dialogue, debate, our sensitivities to human needs, human rights are sorely needed. . . The feminist movement has a vision. We understand, first of all, that we have but one earth, shared by one humanity. . . . we will make it a woman’s world, not in the sense of control, or power, or dominance, but those values that we call women-centered values, will be diffused throughout society.” (“Feminism and Political Power,” Canadian Women Studies, 1987, vol. 8, no. 2, p.82; photo y3sman.wordpress)
Thérèse Paquet-Sévigny born Quebec, Canada March 3, 1939. Canadian journalist. First female UN Undersecretary, for Public Information, 1987-91.
“The notion of peace is much more than the absence of war. When the United Nations was founded, the allies were committed to the idea that to create real peace, understanding and solidarity had to be built between the nations of the world, and this could only be achieved by an informed public. Whoever speaks of peace has to speak of mutual understanding, of dialogue, and obviously of information and communication.” (International Affairs, 1990, p.46; photo ACNU)
Alice Locke Park born Boston, MA February 3, 1861 (d. 1961). Absolute pacifist; opposed Spanish-American War; quit Unitarian society over its failure to oppose World War I. Delegate to International Women's Congress for Peace and Freedom, the Hague, 1915; member of Ford Peace Expedition, 1915; leader of WILPF. Founded Palo Alto Women's Peace Party, 1915. Her poem "Disarm Christmas" opposed the giving of war toys.
"Because war will interrupt the regular suffrage work, as war has for long done in other cases, is no reason why we should turn aside from our chosen work and take up other work." (letter to Carrie Chapman Catt, Feb. 17, 1917, in Bolt, Women's Movements, p. 246)
Maud Wood Park born Boston, MA January 25, 1871 (d. 1955). Suffragist; first president of League of Women Voters, 1920-24. (photo http://bit.ly/FOdEPO)
Rosa Parks (née McCauley) born Tuskegee, AL February 4, 1913 (d. 2005). Described by the US Congress as, "the mother of the freedom movement." Initiated Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusal to surrender seat to a white passenger, 1955.
"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." (1955 photo, Wikipedia)
Women in Peace
is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of extraordinary, peacemaking women from around the world.
