Susan Sarandon

Overview

Susan Sarandon (née Tomalin) born New York, NY October 4, 1946. Actress; voiced early opposition to Iraq War on moral grounds and predicted disaster. Trip to Nicaragua, 1983; UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, 1999; Code Pink Mother's Day protest, 2006.

Quotations

"To ignore the U.N. and its peacekeeping role and to unravel NATO is to dismantle all our hopes for future peacekeeping. I am against war because I know that there are other means available to solve problems." (Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2003; photo http://uni.cf/xAJOQe)

Henrietta Sargent

Overview

Henrietta Sargent born Gloucester, MA November 18, 1785 (d. 1871). Pioneering abolitionist; founder of Female Anti-Slavery Society, Boston; 1835 meeting mobbed.

Quotations

"Touched by that power, the warrior's sword,
The ploughshare's form shall take.
Mercy and Truth combined appear,
Each cruel yoke to Break."

(poem Olive Tree, Sept 1851; photo Mass. Hist. Soc.)

Linda Sarsour

Overview

Linda N. Sarsour born Brooklyn, NY March 19, 1980. Palestinian-American; co-chair Women’s March 2017; Executive Director Arab American Assn. of NY. 2011; arrested at Day Without a Woman protest 2017.

Quotations

“We’re going to stand up to fascism and racism and xenophobia. And we’re not going to allow this administration to roll back the rights that many people have fought for so that we can be here today. . . we promoted Kingian nonviolence, the six principles of Kingian nonviolence. We are here in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King.” (Democracy Now, Jan. 27, 2017; photo muslimobserver.com)

Kshama Sawant

Overview

Kshama Sawant born Pune, India October 17, 1973. American social activist; economics professor. Socialist member of Seattle City Council, 2014-present. Arrested for participation in Occupy protest blocking eviction, 2012, and Seatac minimum wage protest, 2014. Opposed Israel-Gaza war.

Quotations

“It is the responsibility of elected officials everywhere to openly speak out to stop the humanitarian catastrophe, and to condemn it in the strongest possible terms... All killing of innocent people, women and children especially, should be condemned. And the last month of killings of Palestinians in Gaza is not only stomach-turning, it is only one in a long and documented series of war crimes stretching over decades. This has been happening with the tacit or overt complicity of US imperialism.” (Aug. 4, 2014 speech; photo seattle.gov)

Amelie H. Scheltema

Overview

Amélie Scheltema (née Hains) born Boston, MA April 26, 1928. Marine biologist at Woods Hole Inst.; draft counselor in Vietnam War; Quaker conflict resolution trainer.

Quotations

"Quakers taught me where to stand. You oppose evil without rancor, hatred, or fear. You stand in that place that’s right and true. You simply say 'That’s not to be done.’" (photo bibapp.mbl.edu)

Lisa Schirch

Overview

Lisa Schirch born Bluffton, OH October 16, 1969. Mennonite Professor of Peacebuilding; author of women’s peacemaking manual 2004; director of 3P Human Security 2007; Director of Human Security Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Quotations

“[P]acifism is a commitment to peace and a belief that the use of violence to achieve peace is inherently problematic. Violence is like a virus: it leads to more violence. The use of violence to attempt to stop other people’s violence creates unintended second and third order problems.” (“The Art of Peacebuilding”, May 5, 2013; photo emu.edu)

Mary Beth Schlagheck

Overview

Mary Beth Schlagheck born Richmond Center, WI September 3, 1938. Peace activist; arrests for nonviolent protests at Nevada Test Site; Whiteman AFB.; Offut AFB; Truax AFB; drone protest Volk Field 2013; cared for 11 children of imprisoned protester Helen Woodson 1982; chaired Wisconsin Network for Peace & Justice; began 35+ year weekly peace vigil Mondays at Madison IRS 1981-present.

Quotations

"To be that presence in the public square—it just seems so American to me." (Wisc. State Journal, Dec. 6, 2011; photo community shares.com)

Lorraine Schneider

Overview

Lorraine Schneider (née Art) born Chicago, IL January 17, 1925 (d. 1972). Antiwar artist. Created iconic poster “Primer” which stated “WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN OR OTHER LIVING THINGS,” 1966; used by Another Mother for Peace campaign against Vietnam War, 1967.

Quotations

“Man will learn to resolve his inevitable difference through nonmilitary alternatives. But it is up to us, the artists. . . to prepare the emotional soil for the last step out of the cave.” (to UN disarmament conference, Geneva, Sept. 26, 1972; photo Boyle Heights History blog, May 22, 2013)

Hannah Kent Schoff

Overview

Hannah Kent Schoff born Upper Darby, PA June 3, 1853 (d. 1940). Social reformer for children's rights; organized International Conference on Child Welfare 1908 Washington DC.

Quotations

"Child welfare! It is man and woman welfare; it is nation welfare really." (New York Times, April 23, 1911; photo poweltonhistoryblog.blogspot.com)

Dorothy Schramm

Overview

Dorothy Schramm born Tilton, NH June 16, 1909 (d. 2006). Early leader in American promotion of UN; chaired first UN Day 1942; leader against racism. Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day Oct. 24, 1958 told of UN birthday celebration in Iowa: "Mrs. Dorothy Schramm, whose energy and organization work has resulted in the formation of many AAUN [American Association For the United Nations] chapters in Iowa, told us of many other cities that were holding celebrations and of some of the imaginative programs that were being carried out. Interesting to me, in particular, was one in which the newspapers and groups highlighted the value of the World Court. They acted out a dispute over an island in the river between Iowa and Illinois."

Ellen Schrecker

Overview

Ellen Wolf Schrecker born Philadelphia, PA August 4, 1938. Historian, "the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians"; opponent of Cold War, Korean War and Vietnam War.

Quotations

"[T]he main legacy [of the Cold War] is the national security state that produced and was produced by the militarization of American foreign policy." (Schrecker, ed., Cold War Triumphalism, p. 18, 2004; photo askmarpublishing)

Mary Anne Schwalbe

Overview

Mary Anne Schwalbe (née Goldsmith) born Manhattan, NY March 31, 1934 (d. 2009). Founding Director of Women’s Refugee Commission 1990-4; active in International Rescue Committee; 6 months in Thai refugee camp; Balkans election observer; educator Dean of Admissions Radcliffe. Harvard.

Quotations

“Just imagine that you are awakened tonight by someone in your family who says to you ‘Put the things you treasure most in one small bag that you can carry. And be ready in a few minutes. We have to leave our home and we will have to make it to the nearest border.’ What mountains would you need to cross? How would you feel?. . . Especially if across the border was a land where they didn’t speak your language, where they didn’t want you, where there was no work and where you were confined to camps for months or years.” (Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life, p. 120; photo dailymail)

Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich

Overview

Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich born Niagra Falls, NY June 24, 1933. Black civil rights leader; professor of political science; Fulbright professor Univ. of Munich; head of Black Leadership Forum.

Quotations

"My country—and it is, indeed, my country, built and paid for with the very essence of my ancestors—has engendered bad feelings across the globe." ("Confronting Racism Would Enhance U.S. Security." womensenews.org, Sept. 19, 2001; photo Library of Congress)

Vida Scudder

Overview

Vida Scudder born Madurai, India December 15, 1861 (d. 1954). American social reformer; absolute pacifist; socialist; professor; scholar; lesbian.

Quotations

"The rejection of private ownership as the only gateway to freedom and to peace." (On Journey 1937; photo c. 1890 wikicom pd)

Catharine Sedgwick

Overview

Catharine Sedgwick born Stockbridge, MA December 28, 1789 (d. 1867). Publication of novel Hope Leslie showed a revised view of the Pequot War, sympathetic to the Indian view, 1827.

Quotations

"Virtue and intellect are not withheld from any branch of the human family; and the enlightened and accurate observer of human nature will admit that the difference of character among the various races of the earth, arises mainly from difference of condition." (Preface Hope Leslie; 1856 W. Coombe engrav., wikicommons pd)

Peggy Seeger

Overview

Margaret “Peggy” Seeger born New York, NY June 17, 1935. American folksinger and songwriter; denied passport for visits to China and Russia; song “Four Minutes to Midnight” for Greenham Common; “March With us Today’ 1961 for Aldermaston March; “Four Minute Warning”, “Brother Won’t You Join the Line” re nuclear exchange; “Ballad of the Unknown Soldier” 1969 re Vietnam.

Quotations

We're marching on Trafalgar Square, Oh yes, oh!
Today we're marching to declare that bomb has got to go!

That bomb it weighs a ton or so;
Can kill a million at one go.

Fall-out here and fall-out there;
And strontium 90 everywhere.

This overcrowded world is small;
But it's better than no world at all.

Oh dropping bombs is all the rage;
But I'd rather live to a ripe old age.

The Prince was born the other day;
The very first words I heard him say

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust;
If the bomb doesn't get you then the fall-out must.

(“The Bomb Has to got to Go!”, 1969; photo Alchetron)

Caroline Severance

Overview

Caroline Seymour Severance born Canandaigua, NY January 12, 1820 (d. 1914). Unitarian pacifist; abolitionist; suffragist. Instrumental in the founding of numerous women's organizations: Free Religious Association with Lucretia Mott, 1867; American Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone, 1869; Women's International Peace Association, 1871.

Quotations

"I am very proud of the work I have done in my life to better the world in which we live and to elevate the condition of humanity, whether black or white, rich or poor, male or female." (letter to Isabella Hooker, Aug. 17, 1869, in connhistory.org; photo http://bit.ly/wFAbOX)

Janice Sevre-Duszynska

Overview

Janice Sevre-Duszynska born Kentucky January 17, 1950. Catholic woman priest; peace activist; arrested twice 2016 for peace protests at Pentagon; arrested for Rivers of Blood protest at Capitol 2017; arrested 2015 for nonviolent protests at Vatican and D.C.

Quotations

“The measure of a healthy society is how we treat the marginalized. How we can care for them in a just and humane manner when 56% of the federal budget goes to the Pentagon for its 800+ military bases and the killing? That fills the pockets of the weapons manufacturers!” (Sep. 26, 2016, Pace e Bene; photo diane dougherty’s blog)

May Wright Sewall

Overview

May Wright Sewall born Greenfield, WI May 27, 1844 (d. 1920). American suffragist and peace leader through World War I; organized International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace 1915; sailed on Ford's peace ship to stop war 1915-16.

Quotations

"[W]omen. . . believe in the solidarity of humanity. . . They see in the maintenance and enlargement of the present standing armies of the world a menace to the highest civilization." (April 25, 1899 letter on behalf of 1.25 million women commending Russian Tsar's peace effort; photo gutenberg.org)

Alice Shaffer

Overview

Alice Shaffer born Chicago, IL August 5, 1905 (d. 1997) "Champion of the world's children." Quaker social worker; director of Berlin Quaker center 1939 aiding refugees; first UNICEF worker in Latin America 1947-62.

Quotations

"Love, food, shelter, and the development of the mind, body, and spirit are well recognized essentials for children." (letter from Guatemala, in Leonard Kenworthy, Living in the Light, vol. I, p. 215, 1984)