Lillian Wald

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Overview

Lillian D. Wald born Cincinnati, OH March 10, 1897 (d. 1940). Nurse and community activist. “Militant pacifist” and “practical idealist.” Founder and first president of American Union Against Militarism, 1914. Co-founded League of Free Nations Association, forerunner of Foreign Policy Association, 1918. Active in feminist Women’s Peace Party and WILPF.

Quotations

“Women are here to reaffirm their protest against war, to restate their unalterable faith in the righteousness of Peace.” (Better World Heroes; photo Wikipedia)

Patricia M. Wald

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Overview

Patricia McGowan Wald born Torrington, CT September 16, 1928. American Judge of International Court for Yugoslavia 2002; opposed execution of Rosenbergs; only woman on 2004 commission to assess intelligence leading to Iraq War.

Quotations

"The Intelligence Community’s performance in assessing Iraq’s pre-war weapons of mass destruction programs was a major intelligence failure." (Iraq Intelligence Commission Report, p. 46, 2004; photo ICTY)

Julia Grace Wales

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Overview

Julia Grace Wales born Bury, Quebec July 14, 1881 (d. 1957). Originated idea of continuous peace mediation 1915, which led to League of Nations; co-founded WILPF.

Quotations

"I ask myself, is it just a wild flight of imagination to conceive of a world without war. . . but someone must try. . . " (March 20, 1917)

"The time to make a resolute effort to save our world is now, before the destruction has gone any further." (Wisconsin Plan, Feb. 27, 1917; photo collectionscanada.gc.ca)

Alice Walker

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Overview

Alice Walker born Eatonton, GA February 9, 1944. Author; essayist; poet; activist. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Zinn, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer, registered Mississippi voters, 1965; with husband Melvyn Leventhal, first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi, 1967. Awarded Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1983; recipient National Book Award, 1983.

Quotations

"The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout. . . I do not believe in war at all; although I am as capable of anger as anyone. To me war is something to be outgrown, recognized as immature, wasteful and so destructive to life that human beings should shun it as they shun swine flu, or HIV/AIDS or as they once shunned Bubonic Plague." (March 22, 2010, The Root Blog; 2007 photo Wikipedia)

Madam C. J. Walker

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Overview

Madam C.J. Walker (née Sarah Breedlove) born Delta, LA December 23, 1867 (d. 1919). African-American tycoon; benefactor of NAACP Anti-lynching campaign.

Quotations

"We must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice. We should protest until the American sense of justice is so aroused that such affairs as the East St. Louis riot be forever impossible." (speech during World War I, Philadelphia, 1917; photo wikicommons pd)

Naomi Wallace

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Overview

Naomi Wallace born Prospect, KY August 17, 1960. American playwright, poet and professor; peace activist; “The Fever Chart: Three Versions of the Middle East” (2008) exposes the cruelty of Palestine’s occupation and Iraq War; Women’s Boat for Gaza 2016.

Quotations

“I believe the job of mainstream culture and mainstream theatre is to keep the peace. Our job, as teachers, is to encourage new writers to break it, to disrupt the lie, to speak truth to power.” (“On Writing as Transgression”, Oct. 2007 Palatine workshop; photo americantheatre.org)

Marion Wallace-Dunlop

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Overview

Marion Wallace-Dunlop born Inverness, Scotland December 22, 1864 (d. 1942). Artist; militant suffragist, twice arrested, 1908, 1909; first British hunger strike lasting 91 hours; arrested for smashing windows, 1911.

Quotations

"It is the right of the subject to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecution for such petitions are illegal." (excerpt from Bill of Rights she posted on parliament building, 1909; Oxf. Dict. Nat. Bio citing Rosen 118; photo Spartacus.edu)

Margot Wallstrom

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Overview

Margot Wallström born Skellefteå, Sweden September 28, 1954. UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict 2010; European Environment Commissioner 1999-2004; First Vice President European Commission 2004-10.

Quotations

"It’s just a matter of believing that the right man in the right place can be a woman." (Oreja de Europa, Nov. 12, 2009; photo Wikipedia)

Gladys Walser

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Overview

Gladys Walser (née Drummond) born Kobe, Japan June 29, 1889 (d. 1975). First WILPF representative at UN, 1945-57. Exchange of prisoners, Korean War armistice, 1952. Played influential role in disarmament of Antarctica, 1959.

Quotations

“The achieving of peace and goodwill among nations. To attain this goal it is my belief that these ends can be attained not by resort to force and violence, but by peaceful means—negotiation, arbitration, conciliation and judicial judgment.” (vitae)

Sarah Wambaugh

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Overview

Sarah Wambaugh born Cincinnati, OH March 6, 1882 (d. 1958). Internationalist; political scientist; professor at Wellesley College and Radcliffe College. Expert on plebiscites; chosen by League of Nations to oversee Saar plebiscite, 1935; UN Observer of Greek elections, 1946, and Kashmir plebiscite, 1949.

Quotations

“To [stop war itself ] we must join with the rest of the world, through the League of Nations, in a system of collective security based on mutual assistance to prevent aggression.” (Harvard Crimson, Dec. 3, 1935; 1920s photo Wikipedia)

Galuh Wandita

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Overview

Galuh Wandita born January 26, 1966. Indonesian peacemaker in Timor, Kalimantan and Papua. UN human rights officer, East Timor, 2000; deputy director UN-backed Timor Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR), 2002; Director International Center for Transnational Justice ICTJ, Jakarta, 2005. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

Quotations

"Women living in conflict areas need help to enter the public arena, grab the microphone and influence the decision-makers, if not be the decision-makers themselves." (Worldpeoplesblog; photo galuhwandita)

Anne Warburton

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Overview

Anne Marion Warburton born June 8, 1927. First female British ambassador 1976; to UN Geneva 1983-85; led European investigation of rape in Balkan war 1992; President Lucy Cavendish College.

Quotations

"The rape of Muslim women has been—and perhaps still is—perpetrated on a wide scale and in such a way as to be part of a clearly recognizable pattern, sufficient to form an important element of war strategy." (Feb. 1993 report)

Elizabeth Ward

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Overview

Elizabeth "Biff" Ward born Sydney, Australia November 29, 1942. Australian author and poet; feminist leader; protested Vietnam War; organized Pine Gap Peace Camp, 1983; leader of anti-nuclear organization Women for Survival.

Quotations

"It was within this anti-Vietnam war world that I first met women's liberation." (Jocelynne Scott, Different Lives, p. 77; Bob Givens photo 2005 Nat. Library Austral.)

Marilyn Waring

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Overview

Marilyn Waring born Ngankuawahia, New Zealand October 7, 1952. Feminist professor of politics; 10-year member of parliament, served on Foreign Affairs Committee; led movement to make nation nuclear-free, 1982; critic of economics in which war is most profitable, while women's unpaid work is not counted.

Quotations

"It is in the economic interest of the major powers that there is always a war going on." (Who's Counting; photo word.world-citizenship)

Barbel Wartenberg-Potter

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Overview

Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter born Pirmasens, Palatinate, Germany September 16, 1943. Lutheran bishop of Lübeck. Called on US to "renounce counter-violence" against Islam; opposed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; signed appeal "Another War in Europe? Not in our name!", 2014.

Quotations

"[T]he common denominator between religious communities should hopefully be the protection of life, the sanctification of life. . . religious leaders have to speak unanimously against violence and for the protection of life. We have to contribute to peaceful solutions of conflicts and brand every destruction of life as a godless deed. We also must fight and eliminate violent speaking, much of real violence starts with the violence of the words. In all religions prayers for peace, theology of peace and exercises of nonviolent conflict resolution should be promoted." (European Conference of Religious Leaders, Berlin, March 5, 2008)

Dionne Warwick

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Overview

Dionne Warwick born East Orange, NJ December 12, 1950. Pop singer; US envoy for health, UN Global Ambassador for FAO, 2002; active in AIDS campaign; resident of Brazil.

Quotations

"What the world needs now is love sweet love
no, not just for some but for everyone."
("What the World Needs Now is Love")

"The windows of the world are covered with rain,
What is the whole world coming to?
Everybody knows when men cannot be friends
Their quarrel often ends where some have to die.
Let the sun shine through."
("The Windows of the World"; photo 2003 wikicommons)

Johanna Waszklewicz-van Schilfgaarde

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Overview

Baroness Johanna Waszklewicz-van Schilfgaarde (née Zouterwoude) born Netherlands November 7, 1850 (d. 1937). Dutch peace organizer; founded Alliance of Women for peace, 1899; opposed Boer War.

Quotations

"I sent an appeal to women of all nations, convinced that their simultaneous actions in every country might have a positive effect on the stubborn bellicosity of our men, Our League [of women] understands the armed peace is as evil as war." (1896, La Fronde, April 8, 1898; photo Trouw.com)