Virginia Tango-Piatti

Overview

Virginia Tango-Piatti (AKA Agar) born Florence, Italy September 21, 1867 (d. 1958). Feminist poet and writer. Pacifist, anti-militarist, and anti-fascist; lifelong proponent of nonviolence. Opposed Libya War, 1912; spoke openly against World War I, 1915. Published memoirs as volunteer nurse, 1917. Co-founded Italian WILPF. Exiled, 1933-39; arrested and sent to concentration camp, 1943.

Quotations

“Be living peace, the eternal Antigone.” (quote from memoir, 1917; photo archiviotallone.com/virginia.html)

Nora Tapiwa

Overview

Nora Chengeto Tapiwa born Buhera, Zimbabwe September 2, 1967 (d. 2014). Zimbabwean community and labor organizer; exiled, 2002; leader of Zimbabwe diaspora; peacemaker in anti-immigrant riots Johannesburg 2008; Joan Kroc peacemaker, 2010.

Quotations

“Women, as mothers, are more passionate in making peace. They can keep nations together the way they keep their families together.” (Sofia Javed bio. Kroc Inst.; photo sandiego.edu)

Paula Helen Hollmen Tasso

Overview

Paula Helen Hollmen Tasso born July 1, 1923. (d. 2010). WILPF Representative at UN 1988-2000; political activist working for environment and racial and economic justice; two visits to Soviet Union to present workshops on Bruntland Report on international environment.

Quotations

"War: it is clear that all wars, local, global, in-between, invalidate the rights of people."(International Peace Update, Oct. 1998)

"The horror becomes too much to bear. Generations of human beings have been damaged. The destabilization of countries is, in large part, due to the sudden availability of massive quantities of lethal light weapons." ("Challenging the Arms Trade." Peace and Freedom, p. 11, Jan. 1999; Photo Bryn Mawr College)

Christiane Taubira

Overview

Christiane Taubira born Cayenne, French Guiana February 2, 1952. Maroon Guianan; French politician and human rights advocate; French Minister of Justice, 2012-16, resigned over stripping citizenship of terrorist convicts; European Parliament, 1994-99; 20 years French National Assembly, 1993-2012; led passage of 2001 law declaring slave trade and slavery crimes against humanity.

Quotations

“Sometimes staying is resisting; sometimes quitting is resisting. But in loyalty to ourselves, and to others the last word is ethics and the law.” (Europe1.fr, Jan. 27, 2016; photo tntv.pf)

Meredith Tax

Overview

Meredith Tax born Milwaukee, WI September 18, 1942. Feminist; antiwar activist; author and essayist. Published writings opposing the Israeli occupation of Gaza, nuclear weapons, and wars in Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Quotations

“Take war, for instance: the division of labor on most occasions has been that men decided how to fight and women took care of the orphans. A nuclear war won't have orphans; a new job description is needed.” (“Jewish Identity”, March 6, 1983)

“[T]he leadership of women is essential in a peace movement because pacifist men and conscientious objectors are always accused of cowardice and thus discredited.  Such leadership also asserts the intelligence, capability and humanity of women in a war climate that usually turns women from individual people into symbols of the motherland, booty for the conqueror nation, and pieces of meat.” (“Women, Ethnic War”, March 9, 1998)

Elinore Dannenberg Taylor

Overview

Elinore Dannenberg Taylor born Huntington, WV November 26, 1929 (d. 2014). Playwright; English professor; Co-Chair Tri-State Peace Fellowship. Opposed Vietnam War, Contra aid; promoted Nuclear Freeze; arrested at Capitol for Contra protest.

Quotations

"So it goes. You oppose one bandwagon, and suddenly it's 40 years later!" (War Resisters League Peace Calendar 1991, December 2; photo klingel.tributes.com)

Emily Annette Taylor

Overview

Emily Annette Taylor (née Winslow) born Havre, France July 5, 1822 (d. 1904). Quaker abolitionist delegate to first World's Anti-Slavery Convention London 1840; active suffragist; educated her son Frederick, who became "Father of management efficiency."

Helen Taylor

Overview

Helen Taylor born Kent Terrace, London, England July 27, 1831 (d. 1907). Pioneering British suffragist, feminist, radical social reformer, and actress. Anti-imperialist and democratic socialist. Stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. As the first woman candidate for Parliament, campaigned on platform of women’s rights, war prevention, and wage raises, 1885. Publicly opposed coercion in Ireland. Active leader of Women’s Peace & Arbitration Association.

Quotations

“The impotence of mere force. . . as compared with the slower but more thorough conquests of moral persuasion.” (1881 meeting, Women’s Peace & Arbitration Association; photo Spartacus-educational.com)

Valerie Taylor

Overview

Valerie Taylor (née Velma Nacella Young) born Aurora, IL September 7, 1913 (d. 1997). Lesbian poet and novelist; Socialist; Quaker pacifist; active in WILPF; early protests against Vietnam War.

Quotations

How shall I not be a revolutionary?
How shall I not see
my sister in every woman,
my brother in any man,
my child to cherish in every child?
("Eight Kinds of Strength" 1979; photo Wikipedia)

Sara Teasdale

Overview

Sara Teasdale born St. Louis, MO August 8, 1884 (d. 1933). American lyric poet; pacifist; critic of arms manufacturers.

Quotations

They are making ammunition. . .
They are shaping brass and bullets
That will kill their fellow men. . .
And the murdereres go scatheless
Though they do the work of hell.

“Spring in the Naugatuck Valley”, 1915

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound. . .
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

(1920; photo: poetryfoundation.org)

Helga Tempel

Overview

Helga Tempel Stolle born Hamburg, Germany January 10, 1932. Quaker pacifist; counselor on conscientious objection. Co-founded Action Group for Nonviolence, 1956; organized pray-in at NATO, 1958; kept 14-day vigil against nuclear weapons, 1958; held 30-day protest against French nuclear tests, 1960. Co-organized first Easter Marches, 1960, & San Francisco to Moscow March, 1961; co-founded World Peace Brigade Beirut, 1962; awarded Olaf Palne Peace Prize, 1988; counseled German soldiers to refuse Balkan War service, 1999; promoted nonviolent peace force.

Quotations

"I am ready to live without the protection of military armaments. I want our county to develop a political policy of peace without weapons." (Stuttgart, 1977 de.Wikipedia; photo http://bit.ly/VuQLYW)

Rini Templeton

Overview

Lucille Corinne Templeton born Buffalo, NY July 1, 1935 (d. 1986). Anti-war artist who supported workers rights and opposed intervention in Central America; opposed Pinochet coup in Chile; opposed Bay of Pigs from Cuba.

Emma Tenayuca

Overview

Emma Tenayuca born San Antonio, TX December 21, 1916 (d. 1999). Chicana labor organizer "La Pasionara de Texas"; Socialist anarchist speaker, often arrested; mobbed, 1939; opposed wars in Korea, Vietnam.

Quotations

"I just have a feeling, a very strong feeling, that if ever this world is civilized that it would be more the work of women." (Jerry Poyo interview, Feb. 21, 1987, Texas Cultures; photo poly usf.edu)

Silvia Tennenbaum

Overview

Silvia Tennenbaum (née Pfeiffer-Belli) born Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany March 10, 1928. American author; Jewish critic of Israeli violence.

Quotations

"The time is long overdue for Jews to return to their role as the world's conscience, who come to the aid of the dispossessed, the wretched of the earth. Once again, we must join those who demand the end to unjust wars—in Iraq as well as Lebanon—and an unjust occupation in Gaza." ("Why Doesn’t Israel Work for Peace?" Newsday, Aug. 3, 2006)

Teresa of Avila

Overview

Teresa of Avila born Avila, Castile March 28, 1515 (d. 1582). Spanish mystic and preacher.

Quotations

“’Peace, peace be unto you’, my sisters, as our Lord said, and many a time proclaimed to his Apostles. Believe me, if we neither possess nor strive to obtain this peace at home, we shall never find it abroad.” (Interior Castle, 2d Mansion, p. 16; Bernini sculpture)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Overview

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (née Agnes Bojaxhiu) born Skopje, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire August 26, 1910 (d. 1997). Recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her peace efforts: Nehru Prize, 1969; Templeton Prize, 1973; Nobel Peace Prize, 1979.

Quotations

"[L]ove begins at home, and if we can create a home for the poor—I think that more and more love will spread. And we will be able through this understanding love to bring peace, be the good news to the poor. The poor in our own family first, in our country and in the world." (Nobel address, Dec. 11, 1979; photo Vatican.va)

Mary Church Terrell

Overview

Mary Church Terrell born Memphis, TN September 23, 1863 (d. 1954). Black social reformer, spoke in German as only nonwhite woman at WILPF meeting Zürich 1919, and International Congress of Women Berlin 1904.

Quotations

"You may talk about peace till doomsday, but the world will never have it until the dark races are given a square deal." (May 15, 1919 to WILPF Zürich, Autobiography, p. 373, 1940; photo womenshistory)

Peggy Terry

Overview

Peggy Terry born Haileyville, OK October 28, 1921 (d. 2004). Vice-Presidential peace candidate, 1968; community organizer, poor white Southerner civil rights activist in Montgomery bus boycott; member Women for Peace Chicago; CORE protest 1963 led to 6 arrests; SNCC activist, 1966; organizer Jobs or Income Now (JOIN); first Peace & Freedom party’s vice presidential candidate with Eldridge Cleaver, 1968.

Quotations

"It's not only blacks and college kids who want to turn things around. Other working people and young people—we know we're being done the same way. And we don't need any politicians to tell us what we want. We know! We want to run our own lives!" (“All Power to the People”, p. 30; photo bannedlibrarian)

Jasmina Tesanovic

Overview

Jasmina Tešanović born Belgrade, Yugoslavia March 5, 1954. Serbian author, feminist, filmmaker who opposed Balkan wars; Women in Black; antiwar feminist; “The Invisible Book” 1992; “Diary of a Political Idiot” re NATO bombing.

Quotations

“We can imagine things we can’t yet do. There is certainly no world peace, for instance, but women create and lead pacifist movements, and are first to clear the rubble whenever the war ends.” (Turin, April 13, 2016, Casa Jasmina; photo Wikipedia)

Elisabeth von Thadden

Overview

Elisabeth von Thadden born Mohrungen, E. Prussia July 29, 1890 (d. 1944). Aristocrat schoolmistress. Illegally welcomed Jews and read Psalms; beheaded by Nazis, Berlin.

Quotations

Last words: "Make an end, O Lord, end our sufferings!" (1938 photo BBC)