August 27

/

Women peacemakers born today

  • 1876 Rita Majerotti born Castelfranco Veneto, Treviso, Italy (d. 1960). Italian elementary school teacher who opposed World War I; Socialist; feminist; defended women workers; jailed 42 days and exiled by Mussolini.

  • 1928 Joan Kroc born St. Paul, MN (d. 2003). Musician; benefactor of Peace Studies programs Notre Dame, 1987, San Diego, 2000.

  • 1941 Jane Roberts born San Diego, CA. Teacher who founded Friends of UN Population Fund when US cut funds, 2002.

  • 1945 Eva Quistorp born Detmold, Lippe. German pacifist leader; environmental leader; theologian, political scientist. Co-founded Green Party and Women for Peace, 1979; promoted nuclear disarmament, 1980. Green Party member of European Parliament, 1989-94; opposed Iraq War; promoted Gaza Freedom March, 2004; advocated nonviolent peace force and UN Parliament.

  • 1955 Angelica Edna Calò Livné born Rome, Italy. Israeli peace advocate; educator for peace through art. Founded Beresheet L'Shalom (Beginning of Peace) Foundation, 2001, and Rainbow dance theater for Palestinian and Israeli youth in Sasa, Galilee. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

  • 1959 Sandra Steingraber born Champaign, IL. Biologist and ecologist; poet. Jailed 10 days for peacefully blocking entrance to Inergy fracking facility, Ithaca, 2013. Founded We Are Seneca Lake to protest fracking, 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1689 Empress Sophia of Russia signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk, securing a peace with China which would last until 1860.

  • 1918 Spokane office of Clara M. Irwin raided for antiwar letter.

  • 1981 Thirty-six Greenham Women began march of "Women for Life on Earth" from Cardiff, Wales; idea of Anne Pettitt.

  • 1982 Eighteen Greenham women arrested for occupying sentry box.

  • 1984 18 German Women’s Resistance Camp protesters blocked crane at US base Reckershausen.

  • 1992 Global Peace Farmers Susan Crane and Sunshine Appleby arrested, Concord, CA.

  • 2006 Iranian women began ”One Million Signatures” campaign for women’s rights.

  • 2011 Helen Yost arrested in Wild Idaho Rising Tide protest against tar sands megaloads.

  • 2012 Togolese women began a week-long Lysistrata protest, refusing sex with husbands who didn’t support Let’s Save Togo Coalition.