December 20

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1802 Amy Post born Jericho, Long Island, NY (d. 1889). Quaker nonresistant; feminist; abolitionist. Signed Seneca Falls Declaration, 1848. Conductor on Underground Railroad, Rochester, NY.

  • 1808 Laura Smith Haviland born Kitley Township, Ontario, Canada (d. 1898). American Quaker abolitionist and suffragist. Co-founded Michigan's first abolition organization, the Logan Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1832. Founded Michigan's first integrated school, the Raisin Institute, 1837. Operated Michigan's first Underground Railroad station.

  • 1851 Dora Montefiore born Tooting, London (d. 1933). British feminist; Socialist leader. Actively opposed World War I, advocating general strike against war, and hiding to avoid arrest. Refused taxes in Boer War and suffrage protest, 1906; barricaded house against collectors, who sold her possessions; arrested for suffrage protest in House of Commons, 1906. Arrested for kidnapping in her rescue of 300 starving Irish children, Dublin, 1912.

  • 1936 Sonia Picado born San Jose, Costa Rica. Chair of UN Commission on Timor, 1999; co-founder Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 1979; judge in Aloeboetoe decision on indigenous rights, 1993.

  • 1938 Regina Birchem born Sisseton, SD. American cell biologist; professor; author. International President of WILPF, 2004-07; undertook peace mission to Gaza, 2009.

  • 1954 Sandra Cisneros born Chicago, IL. Poet and novelist. WILPF Sponsor, Jane Addams Peace Award.

  • 1954 Coleen Rowley born New Hampton, IA. Former FBI agent; peace activist. Testified before 9/11 Commission about intelligence failures, 2001.

  • 1966 Claudia Haydt born Friederichshafen, Würtemburg, Germany. Sociologist and peace activist. Leader of Green Party BAG Peace and International. Founded Militarization Information Center, Tübingen, 1996.

  • 1992 Sanaa Seif born Cairo, Egypt. Peace activist and advocate. Arrested, fined, and sentenced 3 years for involvement in nonviolent protest against anti-protest law, 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1936 Premiere of Martha Graham's anti-war "Chronicle" at the Guild Theater, New York.

  • 1952 Convention on Women's Political Rights adopted by UN General Assembly.

  • 1958 April Carter and 29 others arrested Swatham, England protest against nuclear base by Direct Action Committee of CND.

  • 2008 Four Seriously Pissed Off Grannies arrested at Broadway Recruiting Center, Portland.

  • 2011 Largest Egyptian women's demo in history: thousands protest government violence against women, Cairo.

  • 2011 U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security "The engagement and protection of women as agents of peace and stability will be central to the United States’ efforts to promote security, prevent, respond to, and resolve conflict, and rebuild societies."

  • 2012 In Stockholm, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy and members of FEMEN held nude protest at Egyptian embassy. “Sharia is not a constitution.”