August 21

Women peacemakers born today

• 1929 Emma Mashinini born Rosettenville, Johannesburg. Headed South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1986; union leader arrested 1981 held 6 months solitary; president of Mediation and Conciliation Centre Johannesburg.

• 1947 Margaret Chan Feng Fu-chun born Hong Kong. Director-General UN World Health Organization 2006-12; led global fight against Ebola epidemic.

• 1949 Nicole Kiil-Nielsen born Larchamp, Mayenne, France. French Green politician; elected European Parliament, 2009, serving on Foreign Affairs Committee; anti-nuclear activist since 1960s; aboard “Say Human” Freedom Flotilla II ship “Dignité” to Gaza, 2011.

• 1974 Hafsat Abiola-Costello born Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. Nigerian human rights activist; founded Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), 1999; China Africa Bridge, 2008. Cambridge Peace Commission Youth Peace award 1997; Goi Peace Award 2016.

• 1991 Ahlem Nasraoui born Sbeitla, Kasserine, Tunisia. Leader of Arab Spring; maintains peace blog Peaceholics. Founded Creativo Club for peaceful protest through arts; founded Young Leaders Entrepreneurs. Celebrated International Women's Day 2014 with human chain peace symbol.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1822 Nonviolent lecturer Lucretia Mott accepted as Quaker minister by Philadelphia Women Friends.

• 1905 Universal Peace Conference Mt. Lebanon PA organized by Shaker Anna White.

• 1921 Conclusion of Niagara Falls Conference which founded Women's Peace Union.

• 1947 First Inter-American Congress of Women, Guatemala sponsored by WILPF.

• 1991 European Women's Peace Caravan Sarajevo called for world peace.

• 1992 Four Women of Global Peace Farmers asked end to nuclear weapons, Concord CA.

• 2012 Women's Peace Group protested bomb symposium at Naval Postgraduate School, Portola CA led by Ms. MacGregor Eddy.

August 22

Women peacemakers born today

• 1935 Rozanne L. Ridgway born St. Paul, MN. American career diplomat; Assistant Secretary of State 1985-89, lead negotiator at five Reagan-Gorbachev summits.

• 1979 Anna Baltzer born Berkeley, CA. American Jewish defender of Palestinian rights; International Women’s Peace Service volunteer documented nonviolent resistance 2004.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer protested segregation to Democratic National Committee, Atlantic City.

• 1966 United Farm Workers co-founded by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.

• 1986 Karen Silkwood won $1.38 million settlement after 10 year fight.

• 2011 Women Peace March Nepal organized by Stella Tamang.

August 23

Women peacemakers born today

• 1900 Malvina Reynolds born San Francisco, CA (d. 1978). Folksinger and activist; Socialist; organized "Playing War" against war toys 1964, "Sick World" against A-bomb 1964, "Heavy on Me" against pollution 1977; "Nestlé No!" against baby formula 1978.

• 1950 Roza Otunbayeva born Frunze, USSR (now Bishkek, Kyrgizstan). Professor of Philosophy; UN Special Envoy for Abkhazia dispute 2002; Thrice Kyrgiz Foreign Minister; a leader in Tulip Revolution 2005; as interim President she ended ethnic violence, introduced a new constitution and elections, 2010-11.

• 1951 Noor of Jordan born Washington DC. Queen of Jordan, 1978-99; led international landmine campaign; promoted aid to Balkans 1998; member International Campaign for Missing Persons 1996; official mediator in Colombia civil war; co-founded Global Zero to eliminate nuclear weapons 2008.

• 1994 Michaela “Chaeli” Mycroft born Cape Town, South Africa. Winner of 2011 International Children’s Peace Prize at age 17 for advocacy of children’s disability care; first quadriplegic to climb Kilimanjaro 2015.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1918 Mollie Steimer arrested for antiwar leafleting New York.

• 1929 Sixth International WILPF Congress, Prague, "Renunciation of War—What Follows?" Jane Addams's farewell.

• 1988 Six Raging Grannies arrested Winchelsea Island, Vancouver for invading Nanoose nuclear sub base.

• 2009 Cassidy Nicosia arrested for going topless, Keene NH.

• 2013 Nobel Women's Initiative issued a statement calling for an immediate end to violence in Egypt.

August 24

Women peacemakers born today

• 1808 Mary Ann White Johnson born Westmoreland, NH (d. 1872). Abolitionist; lecturer on physiology. Founding member of world's first nonviolence group, New England Non-Resistance Society, Boston, 1838. As matron at Sing Sing Prison, became advocate for prison reform.

• 1860 Laura Drake Gill born Chesterville, ME (d. 1926). Math teacher; Dean at Barnard College; President of Sewanee College; organized first women's placement service; relieved orphans of war as Red Cross nurse in Cuba 1898.

• 1862 Zonia Baber born Kansas, Clark Co, IL (d. 1956). Geography professor; feminist; pacifist; anti-racist; anti-imperialist; WILPF member of Balch mission to Haiti 1926 leading to end of US military occupation; promoted Puerto Rican suffrage; mapped world peace monuments.

• 1877 Madeleine Z. Doty born Bayonne, NJ (d. 1963). Lawyer; World War I correspondent; pacifist; WILPF founding member; first international secretary 1925-31; started first Junior Year Abroad in Geneva 1938; advocated prison reform after spending voluntary week in prison.

• 1895 Carol Weiss King born Manhattan, NY (d. 1952). Human rights lawyer who defended unpopular immigrants.

• 1928 Angie Brooks born Virginia, Liberia (d. 2007). Lawyer; President UN General Assembly 1970; Liberian envoy to UN 1954; President UN Trusteeship Council 1966 which oversaw independence of Togo and Cameroon.

• 1951 Maha Abu-Dayyeh Shamas born Palestine (d. 2015). Palestinian human rights leader; feminist. Co-founder and Director, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, E. Jerusalem, 1991-2015. Received French Republic Human Rights Award, 1998; named Ms. Woman of the Year, 2002.

• 1954 Ulla Røder born Denmark. Ploughshares protester, sprayed "USELESS" on British sub; disabled Mayfair nuclear raft Loch Goil 1999 for which Trident trio were tried and acquitted.

• 1979 Fransziska Brantner born Lörrach, South Baden, Germany. Expert on UN reform; Green member Reichstag 2013; European Parliament 2009-13; foreign affairs spokesperson for Greens; promoted European Institute for Peace for conflict resolution; active in creation of European External Action Service; opposed European Somalia mission 2014, 2016; abstained on UN missions to Afghanistan 2014, Darfur 2013, South Sudan 2014, Central African Republic 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1945 Jessie Hughan and Frances Witherspoon advocated abolition of atomic bomb.

• 1950 Edith Sampson became first African-American woman appointed to UN by US.

• 1996 Women’s Peace Forum demanding peace, Arawa, Bougainville.

• 2014 The Global Network of Women Peacebuilders held Girl Ambassadors for Peace training of 12 young women to promote women and peace & security issues in Kivu, Congo.

• 2015 In Nelson, British Columbia, the Peacemaking Collective held Young Women’s Peace Camp.

August 25

Women peacemakers born today

• 1876 Eglantyne Jebb born Ellesmere, Shropshire (d. 1928). Founded Save the Children 1919 in response to postwar famine; author of Declaration of Rights of Children 1924.

• 1962 Taslima Nasrin born Mymensingh, East Pakistan. Bangladeshi doctor, poet, novelist, essayist; human rights activist; UNESCO prize for nonviolence 2004; exiled 1994; expelled from India after seven months house arrest.

• 1962 Mutaba Tadjibaeva born Margilan, Fergana, USSR. Uzbekistan human rights activist; founded Fiery Hearts Club of activists; founded Civil Society movement; Martin Ennals Human Rights Prize 2008; Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2005; arrested and raped 2002; arrested 2005, sentenced 8 years, tortured, served 30 months.

• 1963 Tiina Intelmann born Tallinn, Estonia. Estonian diplomat. First woman to head Assembly of State Parties, the oversight and legislative body of the International Criminal Court, 2011.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer took seat at Democratic National Convention in protest against exclusion.

• 1983 International Consultation on Women, Militarism and Disarmament, Gyor Hungary through 28th.

• 1984 1000 Danish women demonstrated at Viborg Peace Camp.

• 1986 10,000 Nigerian women blockaded Ekpan refinery in protest for rights.

• 2008 18-year-old student Sahar Vardi imprisoned for refusing Israeli military service.

• 2011 100,000 umbrellas protest Santiago Chile for educational reform.

• 2014 In Valladolid, Spain, women hung bras on city hall to protest the mayor's comments blaming women for rape.

August 26

Women peacemakers born today

• 1863 Sarah Saunders Page born Waimea South, Nelson, New Zealand (d. 1950). New Zealand peace leader; Quaker feminist, Socialist; led opposition to conscription World War I in Canterbury Women’s Institute; led No More War movement 1930.

• 1874 Zona Gale born Portage, WI (d. 1938). American novelist, playwright and essayist; pacifist opposed to World War I; anti-war novel Heart's Kindred (1915) featured women's appeals for peace; against capital punishment; friend of Jane Addams; helped draft Wisconsin Equal Rights law 1923.

• 1910 Mother Teresa of Calcutta born Skopje, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire (d. 1997). Nobel Peace Prize 1979; first Templeton Prize 1973; Nehru Prize 1969.

• 1920 Naomi Goodman born New York, NY (d. 2005). Headed Jewish Peace Fellowship; feminist and pacifist author who supported conscientious objection and nonviolence; opposed war in Balkans, conscription, capital punishment, arms race, nuclear weapons, Israeli occupation.

• 1941 Barbara Ehrenreich born Butte, MT. PhD biologist; feminist and activist; Democratic Socialist; columnist who opposed Vietnam War and wrote important book Blood Rites on the nature of war 1997.

• 1950 Maria Otero born La Paz, Bolivia. American President of Acción International, leading microfinance 2000; first Latina Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs 2009-13; chaired Bread for the World 1992.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1910 Second International Conference of Socialist Women Copenhagen set March 8 as International Women’s Day.

• 1918 Suffragists convicted for protests at White House.

• 1920 Women's Liberation Day/Equality Day celebrates universal suffrage in US.

• 1970 Women's Strike for Equality: 50,000 marched NY City in largest American march.

• 1980 Women chained selves to Republican National HQ in protest.

• 1987 Ellie Smeal arrested for protest Washington DC.

• 1988 Burma's Second Independence Struggle led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

• 2002 Diane Wilson climbed DOW tower to protest Bhopal disaster, to be arrested and sentenced.

• 2004 Women of Garoka, Papua New Guinea took to streets to protest perpetual violence against women.

• 2010 UN Security Council expressed outrage at mass rapes in Congo.

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.

August 28

Women peacemakers born today

• 1662 Maria Aurora Konigsmarck born Stade, Sweden (d. 1728). Famous German courtesan/diplomat who rescued disappeared brother on mission to Courland 1702. Musician and Countess.

• 1882 Lucy Jennings Dickinson born Winchester, NH (d. 1973). One of five US official women consultants at UN Charter conference San Francisco 1945; promoted UN as president of General Federation of Women's Clubs.

• 1888 Evadne Price (née Eva Grace Price) born Merewether, NSW, Australia (d. 1985). Australian British writer. Under pseudonym of Helen Zenne Smith, published novel Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War antiwar novel based on memoir of Winifred Young, ambulance driver in WWI, 1930.

• 1913 Rosamond Carr (née Halsey) born South Orange, NJ (d. 2006). Humanitarian. Returned to Rwanda after evacuation to found Imbabzi ("a place where you will find all the love a mother would give.") orphanage for 300 children after Rwanda genocide 1994.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1854 Fredrika Bremer's "Appeal to the Women of the World" against criminal war in London Times.

• 1913 Peace Palace at The Hague dedicated by Queen Wilhelmina.

• 1963 Mahalia Jackson called to Martin Luther King Jr. "Tell them about the dream!" at Lincoln Memorial.

• 1976 Irish Peace People rallied 60,000 in Belfast and Dublin.

• 1981 Greenham Women protested US base at Caerwent, Wales.

• 2003 Eleventh International Conference of Women in Black, Marina di Massa, Italy. "Let us dare to make peace, let us disarm the world.”

August 29

Women peacemakers born today

• 1829 Abby Hutchinson Patton born Milford, NH (d. 1892). Singer for peace, abolition and women's rights; poet and member of famous troupe of itinerant singers, song "Kind Words Can Never Die" (1855).

• 1933 Jehan Sadat born Cairo, Egypt. First lady of Egypt who encouraged peace with Israel, which won her husband a Nobel Prize; professor of comparative literature; PhD; poet; delegate to UN Women's conferences Copenhagen and Beijing’ first winner of Community of Christ Peace Award 1993.

• 1948 Ninon Colneric born Recklingshausen, Westphalia. German Judge European Court of Justice 2000-06; Professor, co-Dean of China-Europe School of International Law (CESL).

• 1963 Hilde Frafjord Johnson born Arusha, Tanzania. Norwegian anthropologist; politician. Member of Norwegian Parliament, 1993-2001; Minister for International Development, 1997-2005; UN representative to South Sudan 2011-14. Active peacemaker in Sudan, leading to peace, 2005; Deputy Executive UNICEF, 2007-11.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1914 First protest against World War I: Lillian Wald and Fanny Garrison Villard led more than 1,000 women on the Women's Peace Parade, New York City.

• 1991 Women of Europe Peace Caravan called for peace in Sarajevo.

• 1992 Women founded 21st Century Party opposing war and death penalty; first chair Dolores Huerta.

• 1995 The WILPF Peace Train arrived in Beijing for NGO Forum.

• 2015 Women’s role in bringing peace discussed at Third World Summit of Universal Peace Federation, Seoul, Korea.

• 2015: Six hundred women protested militarization in Osaka Women's March.

August 30

Women peacemakers born today

• 1930 Xernona Clayton born Muskogee, OK. Nonviolent Civil Rights leader with Martin Luther King Jr.; media leader SCLC; founded Trumpet Awards, 1993. Inducted into International Civil Rights Walk of Fame 2004, Atlanta.

• 1944 Molly Ivins born Monterrey, CA (d. 2007). Antiwar journalist and columnist opposed Iraq War.

• 1958 Anna Politkovskaya born New York, NY (assassinated 2006). Russian war correspondent exposed brutality and corruption of Chechen War; rejecting usual military heroes, her heroine was village head Malika who openly cursed the generals and officials.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1961 16-year-old Brenda Harris arrested for ”walk-in” buying bus ticket and sitting in whites-only area, McComb, MS; jailed one month and expelled from school.

• 1989 South African Women protested Johannesburg against capital punishment; 200 women arrested.

• 1995 Lemon Protest at TVA meeting against last loading nuclear fuel at Watts Bar 1; Faith Young and Jeannine Honiker arrested.

• 1995 NGO Women's Forum Huairou, China.

• 2001 Six Shut It Down women arrested for blocking Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

August 31

Women peacemakers born today

• 1858 Helena Stuart Dudley born Florence, NE (d. 1932). Biologist; Christian Socialist; pioneer settlement worker who remained pacifist through World War I; member of WILPF and FOR; partner of pacifist Vida Scudder; died Geneva after WILPF convention.

• 1869 Elizabeth Knight born Northfleet, Kent, England (d. 1933). Pacifist, Quaker physician and suffrage leader. Arrested for suffrage protest to Prime Minister Asquith, 1908. Twice imprisoned for tax refusal. Arrested for leading suffrage protest at Parliament, 1913. Barred from attending International Women's Peace Conference, The Hague, 1915. Treasurer, Woman’s Freedom League, which opposed World War I and advocated nonviolent tactics, 1913-33.

• 1870 Maria Montessori born Chiaravalle, Ancona, Italy (d. 1952). Pioneer in peace education and research; lifelong opponent of war and militarism, promoted League of Nations and UNESCO; first Italian woman doctor 1896.

• 1909 Lagi Ballestrem born Vailima, Upolu, Samoa (d. 1945). Samoan-born German Countess. Member of Solf Circle, a Nazi resistance group. Helped rescue many Jews. Imprisoned, 1944; died before war ended.

• 1970 Rania of Jordan born Kuwait. Advocate of UNICEF, UN Women's Fund, UN Girls Education Initiative.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1830 Quaker Lucretia Mott "liberalized" nonviolent pioneer William Lloyd Garrison's view of war by showing Old Testament God did not authorize war.

• 1852 Persian theologian and poet Fátima Baraghání martyred.

• 1917 Socialist Bertha Frazer of New York fined $50 for alleged seditious remarks in street-corner speech during WWI.

• 1995 Aung San Suu Kyi delivered keynote address via video tape to the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing. "[N]o war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.”

• 2004 The Mindanao Commission on Women opened a conference to discuss peace and conflict resolution at Loleng’s Mountain Resort, Phillippines.

• 2016 Aung San Suu Kyi opened peace talks with rebel groups.