Elizabeth Drinker

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Overview

Elizabeth Drinker (née Sandwith) born Philadelphia, PA February 27, 1735 (d. 1806). Quaker pacifist diarist. Petitioned for release of conscientious objectors. Suffered 70 windows broken, front door mashed for not lighting candles for victory, 1781; Opposed all military service, American and French Revolutions; against Fourth of July celebrations.

Quotations

On carnival by British officers in Philadelphia: “How insensible these people appear, while our land is so greatly desolated, and death and sore destruction has overtaken and impends over so many.” (diary, May 16, 1778)

Connie de la Vega

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Overview

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Constance “Connie” de la Vega born Mexico City, Mexico February 5, 1953. International human rights professor and advocate. Director, Frank Newman Center for International Human Rights Law Clinic; UN representative for Human Rights Advocates. Author, Dictionary of Human Rights Law, 2013. “Women in Peacekeeping and Peacemaking” symposium: Women and War, William and Mary College, 2005; “UN Human Rights Mechanisms” in Protecting Women’s Rights panel, 2014. Named Warren Christopher International Lawyer of California, 2016.

Quotations

“We are all responsible for ensuring the protection of human rights and thus promoting peace.” (photo usfca.edu)

Annie L. Diggs

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Overview

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Annie LePorte Diggs born London, Ontario, Canada February 22, 1848 (d. 1916). Radical Kansas Populist reformer; editor, orator, poet; suffragist; opposed US imperialism; delegate to Universal Peace Conference, Rouen, 1903.

Quotations

“Little Brown Brothers across the sea,
Running your race for liberty
Here’s to you.
We've been there ourselves”

(“Little Brown Brother”, 1899, Liberty Poems, p. 11: photo timetoast)

Pearl Daniel-Means

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Overview

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Pearl Daniel-Means (Lakota name: Iyoyanbya Izanzan Win [“Bright Light”]) born February 10, 1960. Navajo activist, producer, author; led Standing Rock women’s protest, 2016.

Quotations

“Women have always been the backbone of our struggle because we give life. We’re charged with sustaining life, protecting life. We’ve experienced in America 99% genocide, but we’re still here, because we’re matriarchal.” (Sizzle; photo ashaya.com)

Josephine Davis

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Overview

Josephine Davis (née Kowin) born England July 29, 1929 (d. 2012). Canadian peace activist; environmentalist; first vice-president of anti-nuclear group Voice of Women, 1960.

Quotations

“Since we are opposed to the whole concept of nuclear war, and since we feel that the further spread of nuclear weapons increases the possibility of a nuclear war, we feel fully justified in taking this stand on this basis.” (to Premier Diefenbacker, in McMahon, Essence of Indecision, p. 81; photo obitsforlife.com)

Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis

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Overview

Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis born Bloomfield, NY August 7, 1813 (d. 1876). Abolitionist, and suffragist; feminist editor of women's newspaper The Una; main organizer of the first National Woman's Rights Convention Worcester, MA 1850; home nearly burned by mob, Utica, NY Oct. 1835.

Quotations

"The reform which we propose. . . is radical and universal. . . The emancipation of a class, the reform of half the world. . . in which love shall overrule force." (Women’s Rights Convention, Worcester, Oct. 23, 1850; photo Wikipedia)

Danielle de Picciotto

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Overview

Danielle de Picciotto born Tacoma, WA February 19, 1965. American-German singer, filmmaker; co-founder of first and largest Love Parade, West Berlin 1989, for “peace, joy and pancakes.”

Quotations

“[T]he early parade was about having many different styles coexist in peace and equality.” ("Leaving heroin and melancholia behind", June 20, 2014; photo mediainmotion.de)

Grace DeGraff

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Overview

Grace DeGraff born Thomson, IL March 12, 1879 (d. 1951). School principal. Traveled to Europe as founding member of WILPF, 1915; embarked on Henry Ford Peace Expedition, 1916. Founding member of WILPF Portland chapter.

Quotations

“You must choose whether you will train the rising generation in the militaristic spirit that has engulfed Europe in death, desolation and misery, or whether you will use your every endeavor to counteract the legacy of hate that will be bequeathed to the children and will teach them that only in the time of peace is the progress of the world possible.” (“To the Teachers of All the World”, 1916)

Barbara Deming

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Overview

Barbara Deming born New York City July 23, 1917 (d. 1984). Nonviolent activist and writer; lesbian; first arrested 1962 against atom bomb; arrested in civil rights protest Albany GA 1964; Seneca Peace Camp 1984.

Quotations

"We believe in the power of nonviolent acts to speak louder than words." (Albany, GA, 1964, "Prison Notes" in Prisons that Could Not Hold, p. 62, 1985; photo Wikipedia)

Mary Ware Dennett

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Overview

Mary Coffin Ware Dennett born Worcester, MA April 4, 1872 (d. 1947). Art teacher; suffragist; socialist antiwar crusader. Secretary of American Union against Militarism, 1916; co-founder of radical anti-World War I People's Council, 1917; first chairperson of World Federalists, 1941-44. Convicted of obscenity for birth control literature, 1929.

Quotations

"If a few federal officials want to use their power to penalize me for my work for the young people of this country, they must bear the shame of the jail sentence. It is the government which is disgraced, not I." (April 24, 1929, Brooklyn federal courthouse; photo Intlawgrrls)

Juliette Derricotte

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Overview

Juliette Derricotte born Athens, GA April 1, 1896 (d. 1931 when hospital refused her care after auto crash). African-American internationalist educator; Dean of Women, Fisk University. Traveled the globe as representative of the World Student Christian Federation to promote peace and justice.

Quotations

"Do we look upon every person—white, red, yellow, black—as sons of God—sacred to God?" (Marion Cuthbert, Juliette Derricotte, 1936, p.34)