Esther Caukin Brunauer

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Overview

Esther Caukin Brunauer born Jackson, CA July 7, 1901 (d. 1959). American internationalist, expert on establishing international organizations: Dumbarton Oaks for UN and UNESCO 1946, with rank of Minister; expert on Nazi Germany; Exec. Secretary Am. Assn. University Women; fired from State Dept. 1952 after McCarthy attacks.

Quotations

"The nations of the world must work together for the betterment of human life and must develop such strong ties among their peoples that war will eventually become unthinkable." (UNESCO AAUP Bulletin, p. 32, Spring 1947; photo UN)

Louise Bruyn

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Overview

Louise Bruyn (née Muenzer) born Chicago, IL May 23, 1931. Quaker peace activist. Walked 450 miles from Newton, MA to Washington DC in 45 days to protest expansion of Vietnam War to Laos, 1971. Published memoir She Walked for All of Us: One Woman’s 1971 Protest Against an Illegal War, 2013.

Quotations

“I felt that I must break my own routine in order to make my protest heard. For me, this is what my action means. I am speaking as strongly as I know how. It is my deep hope that others will be moved to take some action which for them is right-as strongly as they know how-to end the war. . . I am asking them to look for alternatives, to actively say no to the death machine which is war, in their own way." (Boston College, The Heights, March 2, 1971; photo dennispubliclibrary)

Alice Franklin Bryant

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Overview

Alice Franklin Bryant born Fredericktown, MO May 1, 1899 (d. 1977). Lifelong peace activist; human rights advocate; critic of Cold War; early public opponent of Vietnam War; ran against Senator Scoop Jackson’s militarist policies 1958, 1964 on slogan "Military strength will not win world peace."; teacher in Philippines 1927 imprisoned by Japanese 2½ years 1941; forgave Japan 1946; WILPF, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Friends Service Committee; children’s writer.

Quotations

"Wild horses couldn't stop me working for peace." (Tributes to Peacemakers of Seattle First Baptist Church)

Pearl S. Buck

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Overview

Pearl S. Buck born Hillsboro, WV June 26, 1892 (d. 1973). Humanitarian; author; critic of US Cold War militarism. Founded adoption agency for Asian children, 1949. Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature, 1938.

Quotations

"[T]he test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members." (My Several Worlds, 1954)

"Unless women realize their responsibility for the kind of world we must have. . . we shall simply go on having these devastating, heart-breaking, ruinous wars." (New York Times, April 8, 1943; photo Nobel Prize)

Betty Bumpers

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Overview

Betty Bumpers (née Elizabeth Flanagan) born Grand Prairie, AK January 11, 1925. First Lady of Arkansas; child immunization leader; founded Peace Links as women’s network for peace and to avoid nuclear war, 1982.

Quotations

“Why should we go to all the trouble of protecting the health of our children if we are going to incinerate them?” (Colleen Kelley, Women Who Speak for Peace, p. 131; photo littlerocksoiree.com)

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke

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Overview

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (née Perle Yvonne Watson) born Los Angeles, CA October 5, 1932. Lawyer; three-term Congresswoman, 1973-9; County Commissioner; marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.; opposed Vietnam war.

Quotations

"Today, women are on the march again. Our impact is being felt in all segments of society. I believe this time our participation in government will be permanent." (Wash. Afro-American, July 27, 1976; photo Wikipedia)

Betty Burkes

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Overview

Betty Burkes born Malvern, OH March 24, 1942. Teacher of peace and nonviolence. Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Ethiopia; Chair of American WILPF, 1997-99; Peace Education Program Coordinator at Hague Appeal for Peace, 2002-05.

Quotations

”Love is a great teacher.” (2007)

“If we don't address what's in other people's hearts and minds, if we don't engage each other in a dialogue, then all the declarations on human rights will not matter. . . If we don't address the things that separate us, we will not deliver what we're after. What we're really after is creating communities that sustain life and do not promote war and death.” (Dec. 8, 2001; Robert Shetterly portrait in Americans Who Tell the Truth)

Catherine Burks-Brooks

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Overview

Catherine Burks-Brooks born Birmingham, AL October 8, 1940. One of the first nonviolent Freedom Riders, May, 1961; imprisoned at Parchman Prison, Jackson, MS, 1961.

Quotations

"I didn’t want to die, now, but I didn’t have any fear of doing what I had to do. I knew what was happening was wrong. And I had an opportunity to do something about it." (May 4, 2011, Tennessean; mug shot PBS)

Dorothy Burnham

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Overview

Dorothy Burnham (née Challoner) born Brooklyn, NY March 22, 1915. Civil rights leader with Southern Negro Youth Congress, Birmingham 1940-49; communist; Sisters Against South African Apartheid; WILPF.

Quotations

“[The Secretary of State] cannot expect to lead the world in democracy if there is no democracy in his own country. . . it is about time that he [do] something to stamp out the Ku Klux Klan and the lynchings in the United States.” (Paris, Aug. 1946, World Federation of Democratic Youth, Sara Haviland, James and Esther Cooper Jackson; photo Labor Arts)

Linda Burnham

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Overview

Linda Burnham born Brooklyn, NY January 9, 1948. Second-generation communist peace activist; Dorothy Burnham’s daughter; active in CORE; friendship with Cuba in Venceremos Brigade 1971; opposed nuclear weapons, Vietnam War, Central American wars, Iraq War; sponsored Redesigning Peace fashion show opposing militarization of fashion.

Quotations

“[The U.S. functions in the world that is a more or less permanent feature, is to throw its weight around militarily, and to be a disrupter of peace in the world. And that because of that, we women have a special responsibility in relationship to the issue of peace.” (Loretta Ross interview, March 18, 2005, in Smith College Feminism Oral History, p. 44; photo Linda Burnham blog)

Lucy Burns

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Overview

Lucy Burns born Brooklyn, NY July 28, 1879 (d. 1966). Most arrested suffrage leader, co-leader with Alice Paul; opposed World War I; co-founded Women's Peace Society 1917; organized Washington suffrage parade; held first peace vigil at White House; beaten and force-fed in Occoquan prison.

Quotations

"Help us make this nation really free. Tell our government that it must liberate its people before it can claim free Russia as an ally." (famous Russian banner after Russia gave women the vote, July 20, 1917; photo Wikipedia from Library of Congress)

Vinie Burrows

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Overview

Vinie Burrows born Harlem, NY November 15, 1928. Actress and playwright. Activist promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation through theatre, focused on peace and disarmament, racial discrimination, women's issues, and economic/social development. UN representative of Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). Arrested with Granny Peace Brigade in an effort to enlist, Times Square, 2005.

Quotations

“Racism, colonialism and apartheid must be eliminated and the arms race must be ended if women are to advance.” (Black Enterprise, May 1985, p. 20; photo vinieburrrows.com)

Audrey Brown Burton

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Overview

Audrey Brown Burton born New Orleans, LA December 31, 1939. African-American peacemaker; founded Institute for Inner Development for ex-cons, New York; Unity Walk, Richmond, VA, 1993.

Quotations

"When I practice standards of honesty, unselfishness, love and purity, then I can be around almost anyone and it doesn't set off a time bomb." (Michael Henderson, All Her Paths to Peace, p. 73)

Gertrude Carman Bussey

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Overview

Gertrude Carman Bussey born New York, NY January 13, 1888 (d. 1961). Philosophy professor; WILPF international president, 1949-52; author of WILPF organizational history, 1965.

Quotations

"Wars on a small scale, whether civil or international, carry within themselves the seeds of world war. A world war, even if begun with so-called conventional weapons, would almost certainly end as a nuclear war." (1955, Catia Confortini dissertation, Imaginative Identification, p. 82; photo http://bit.ly/FOhuBJ)

Goler Teal Butcher

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Overview

07.13 butcher.jpg

Goler Teal Butcher born Philadelphia, PA July 13, 1925 (d. 1993). Black international law professor; Africa AID administrator; advocate of ending global hunger; fought against Apartheid; one of first arrests in Free Africa Movement 1984; honored by medal for human rights.

Quotations

“These are sobering times when the challenges of natural calamities as well as the crises of human uncaring, political miscalculations, military and economic opportunism cry out to us for our input. . . [L]awyers must step forward in the effort to address the challenge of the earth itself.” (“The Immediacy of International Law for Howard Students”, 1988)

Francelia Butler

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Overview

Francelia Butler (née McWilliams) born Cleveland, OH April 25, 1913 (d. 1998). Literature professor at Univ. of Connecticut; journalist and children's writer. Founded International Peace Games, 1990.

Quotations

"People are beginning to have hope now that peace can be a reality after centuries of conflict. . . They're beginning to see maybe there are ways of negotiating solutions." (New York Times, May 20, 1990; photo Hollins Univ.)

Elinor Byrns

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Overview

Elinor Byrns born Lafayette, IN June 14, 1876 (d. 1957). American peace leader and lawyer; feminist suffragist and absolute pacifist. Co-founded Women’s Peace Society, 1919; Women’s Peace Union, 1921. The Women's Peace Union successfully advocated for the passage of the Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war, 1928. Opposed World War I and capital punishment.

Quotations

“A government which learns to respect life will be a sane government, realizing the folly and wickedness of permitting, much less of forcing, its citizens to indulge in the abnormality of war. It will know that life, in itself valuable, can be made rich and beautiful. It will understand that its citizens can never reach the highest point of development unless they abandon such ugly practices as killing, and the violation of the personality of others, and concentrate rather on creative, constructive activities.” (Senate Hearing, 1927, Wikipedia from Alonso)