Helen Stevenson

Overview

Helen Stevenson (née Crosbie) born Pasadena, CA June 9, 1917 (d. 2009). Lifelong Quaker pacifist. Founded Argenta intentional community, a Canadian refuge for conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War; founded nonviolent Argenta Friends School, 1959.

Quotations

“Perhaps all that I can do—perhaps all that I have a right to do—is to be sure of my values and to be sure that my reason for action is not based on habit or on the preservation of my own self-image. I must be sure that my reasons for action are in the light of my innermost values, checked against the insights of history and of those whose insights I esteem.” (Friends Journal, Sep. 15, 1968; photo partingwishes.com)

Dannia Southerland

Overview

Dannia Gail “Sunshine” Southerland born Jacksonville, FL October 21, 1950 (d. 2013). Antiwar and anti-racist organizer with War Resisters League, 1978-84; Women’s Pentagon Action; Women’s Walk from North Carolina to Seneca Women’s Peace Camp, 1983; leader Children of Vietnam to aid those harmed by Agent Orange.

Quotations

On the draft: “What we advocate is resistance. . . It’s a different base than conscientious objection. It’s never too late to resist. It’s the resistance that has gone on against draft registration that has kept the draft registration from coming back so far. The resistance has been very profound.” (Duke Chronicle, Nov. 4, 1982; photo legacy.com)

Meryl Streep

Overview

Mary Louise “Meryl” Streep born Summit, NJ June 22, 1946. American actress. Lauded for pacifist and feminist ideals; climate change advocate. Portrayed women peacemakers on stage and screen: Silkwood, 1983; “Mother Courage”, 2006; Rendition, 2007; Lions for Lambs, 2007; Suffragette, 2015.

Quotations

“I have a belief, I guess, in the power of the aggregate human attempt—the best of ourselves. In love and hope and optimism—you know, the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why we are the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better.” (Mick Brown, ”Meryl Streep, Mother Superior”, The Week, Dec. 4, 2008; photo Time Out London, Sept. 29, 2015)

Josette Sheeran

Overview

Josette Sheeran born Orange, NJ June 12, 1954. United Nations diplomat. US Assistant Secretary of State for Business, 2005-07; Executive Director, World Food Program, 2006-12; Vice Chair, World Economic Forum, 2012-13; President, Asia Society, 2013; Special UN Envoy to Haiti, 2017.

Quotations

“A silent tsunami which knows no borders is sweeping the world.” (Graeme Taylor, Evolution's Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World, 2008, p. 46)

“I believe we're living at a time in human history where it's just simply unacceptable that children wake up and don't know where to find a cup of food. . . I would like you to join with all of humanity to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No more. No more are we going to accept this.’” ("Ending Hunger Now", TED Talk, July 2011; photo ted.com)

Elaine Scarry

Overview

Elaine Scarry born April 30, 1946. Harvard professor; author of Thermonuclear Monarchy, 2014.

Quotations

“Nuclear weapons are antithetical to the values of civil society because they wrestle power away from the people and place it in the hands of a few. If we have lost all say over what our military does, we have lost our civil stature.” (Amherst Student, Nov. 3, 2015)

“With nuclear weapons, there is a clear solution. We need to get rid of nuclear weapons. We need to get rid of our own, which then gives us a moral basis for asking other countries to give them up, and to work hand-in-hand with all the countries that have been begging to have a world free of nuclear weapons.” (Sarah Gerard interview, The American Reader; photo Englishfasharvard)

Betsy Sawyer

Overview

Betsy Sawyer (née Rosemary Elizabeth Guercio) born Fitchburg, MA June 14, 1956 (d. 2016). Middle school teacher. Led fifth-grade students at Groton-Dunstable school to create thousand-page The Big Book: Pages for Peace, world’s largest peace book. Received Peace Abbey Award, 2002.

Quotations

“World peace is about making sure people are comfortable and happy, and not living in a state of fear or poverty or violence.” (Boston Globe, May 9, 2016; photo Lowell Sun)

Metta Spencer

Overview

Metta Spencer born Calera, Oklahoma August 29, 1931. Canadian sociology professor, peace researcher, and activist. President, Science for Peace; founding president of Canadian Disarmament Information Service (CANDIS), 1983. Editor, Peace Magazine, 1985. Received UN Global Citizen Award, 1995.

Quotations

“To obtain sufficient funding to repair the world, we must reallocate much of the world’s military funding, which consumes about $1.7 trillion per year. Since nuclear weapons are both useless and dangerous, we can disarm those first.” (Dec. 27, 2013, Metta Spencer’s Weblog; photo mettaspencer.com)

Rivera Sun

Overview

Rivera Sun born Maine August 2, 1981. Nonviolent novelist, poet, and playwright. Director, Pace e Bene Campaign for Nonviolence; co-host of Love and Revolution Radio. Founded Love-in-Action Network.

Quotations

“Nonviolent action succeeds twice as often as violent means, in a third of the amount of time, and with a fraction of the casualties.” (The Roots of Resistance; photo Bainbridge Island Review)

Barbara Sonneborn

Overview

Barbara Sonneborn born Chicago, IL March 2, 1944. Film writer, director, producer of Regret to Inform about the death of her husband in Vietnam War, and her visit to Vietnam to witness the effects of war.

Quotations

"War is a monster. You let it out of its cage and you can't tell it how to behave." (WGBH True Lives, “The Making of Regret to Inform”)

"It has expanded my understanding of sorrow and suffering, of love and joy. I want people to see war differently than they've seen it before. I want them to look war in the face, to ask themselves, 'Am I going to allow this to happen ever again?' I want people to so deeply realize the humanity of other human beings that they won't be able to kill them." (quote and photo AMDOC Regret to Inform, 2006)

Jane Stembridge

Overview

Jane Shelton Stembridge born Cedartown, GA April 7, 1936. Civil rights activist; poet and flutist. First paid worker of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Atlanta, 1960; helped publish its first newsletter Student Voice and first conference, Oct. 1960. Jailed in Mississippi voter registration drive.

Quotations

“We talked about the beloved community;  we can create it. . . black & white people can get together. . . I think I felt that we could change America, and that was a huge idea.” (Iconoclast)

and after he had listened
carefully
he said: if peoples
     got together
     it wouldn't be
     so hard.
He said
that maybe they could
change the world
so children wouldn't starve.

(“About Jesus”; 1958 photo Meredith Oak Leaves)

Constance Sporborg

Overview

Constance Amberg Sporborg born Cincinnati, OH July 11, 1879 (d. 1961). Jewish civic leader; internationalist; settlement worker. Secretary, Committee on Cause and Cure of War, 1929. Undertook Europe study mission, 1937; headed women’s delegation to Pan-American Conference, Lima, Peru, 1938. Consultant at UN founding San Francisco, 1945. Postwar lobbyist at UN; member of US Committee for UNESCO.

Quotations

“Only realists today are internationalists.” (Baltimore Sun, Apr. 12, 1949; photo jewish women’s archive)

Mab Segrest

Overview

Mab Segrest (née Mabelle Massey) born Tuskegee, AL February 20, 1949. Literature professor; anti-racism activist; lesbian feminist; author of Memoir of a Race Traitor. Active in War Resisters women’s antiwar movement, Women’s Pentagon Action, 1982; Savannah River Women’s Peace Camp, 1983.

Quotations

“Thirty-five years of collective terror over nuclear war and a very new alarm at the huge new military budget fueled the women’s peace movement.” (1981, in Memoir of a Race Traitor, p. 44; photo Windy City Times)

Leila Nadya Sadat

Overview

Leila Nadya Sadat born Newark, NJ January 24, 1960. American professor of international law; authority on International Criminal Court and human rights. Special Adviser on Crimes against Humanity to ICC Prosecutor, 2012; Director of Crimes Against Humanity Initiative.

Quotations

“The actions of the Syrian government in attacking peaceful protestors are crimes against humanity, and need to be addressed as such.” (Washington Univerity, St. Louis, Aug. 26, 2011; photo intlawgirls.com)

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Overview

Buffy Sainte-Marie born Piapot Plains, Saskatchewan, Canada February 20, 1941. Canadian First Nation (Cree) singer; adherent of Bahá'í faith of international peace. Her song "Universal Soldier" protested the Vietnam War, 1963.

Quotations

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war

(“Universal Soldier”, 1963)

Ruby Sales

Overview

Ruby Sales born Jemison, AL July 8, 1948. American theologian and nonviolent historian who organized SNCC protests; arrested at age 17 during civil rights movement; jailed six days 1965 Hayneville AL, nearly escaping assassination; founded Spirit House 2001 promoting nonviolence.

Quotations

"Ordinary people when working together have the power to break the backs of important empires. And that empire, when people are united, is never stronger than the will of the people." (interview, Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, Sept. 2005; photo spirithouse)

Susan Salzberg

Overview

Susan Salzberg born New York, NY August 5, 1952. Buddhist meditation teacher.

Quotations

“Imagine if our approach to ending violence was determinedly nonviolent. Imagine if instead of rushing to punish and vilify the offender, we paid equal attention to knowing the story of the abuser. . . Rather than losing ourselves in personal outrage, what if we directed our outrage toward the systems that help create such disaffected, abandoned, and angry people?” (April 8, 2015; photo eomega.org)

Edith Sampson

Overview

Edith Sampson (née Spurlock) born Pittsburgh, PA October 13, 1901 (d. 1971). American diplomat; first African-American delegate to UN, 1950; first African-American judge, 1962.

Quotations

"I would have to devote myself to the cause of world brotherhood and world peace." (Negro Digest, Dec. 1950, 8; photo wikicom. pd)

Sonia Sanchez

Overview

Sonia Sanchez (née Wilsonia Benita Driver) born Birmingham, AL September 9, 1934. Black poet and playwright; civil rights leader of CORE; pioneer professor of Black studies 1967; Lucretia Mott Award of Nat. Endowment for the Arts 1984; won WILPF Peace & Freedom award 1989; leader of Madre; arrested 2006 for protest at recruiting for Iraq.

Quotations

"The cause of war is the preparation of war—the cause of peace must be the preparation of peace." ("Peace"; photo blackbirdpressnews)

Agnes Sanford

Overview

Agnes Sanford born Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China November 4, 1897 (d. 1982). American theologian preacher; famous founder of Inner Healing Movement; absolute pacifist.

Quotations

“I learned the essential decency of human nature, and the utter and absolute evil of war. . . Our mistake is the usual one of assuming that there is no difference between the races. If we could recognize those differences, learn to cope with them, and to cope with them, come to love them, and to bring out the good, then we might have a better world. Until we do learn, no amount of warfare will make it better, but will make it progressively worse.” (Sealed Orders, pp. 203-04; photo heyjol.trip)

Margaret Sanger

Overview

Margaret Sanger (née Higgins) born Corning, NY September 14, 1883 (d. 1966). Nurse; birth control pioneer who organized international population conferences NY 1925, Geneva 1927, Zurich 1930; first President of International Planned Parenthood 1953.

Quotations

"The basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom." (Woman and the New Race, ch. V, 1920)

"Birth control, the real cure for war." (Woman and the New Race, ch. XIII, 1920; photo biography.com)