February 19

/

Women peacemakers born today

  • 1844 Maria Pognon (née Rengnet) born Honfleur, France (d. 1925). French journalist; radical feminist, pacifist, and socialist. Co-founded International Union of Women for Peace, 1895; International Association of Journalist Friends of Peace, 1897. President, French League for Women (LFDF), 1893-1904.

  • 1892 Marie Lous-Mohr born Mandal, Norway (d. 1973). Norwegian nonviolent resister; International President of WILPF, 1952-56. Spent two years in Nazi concentration camp for disobeying Nazi teaching instructions.

  • 1902 Kay Boyle born St. Paul, MN (d. 1992). Nonviolent peace activist. Author of more than 40 books of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, short stories, and children's literature. Blacklisted by major periodical publications during McCarthy era.

  • 1919 Hema Bharali born Assam, India. Gandhian Sarvodaya leader; Assam earthquake relief, 1950; leader in Bhave’s Bhodan movement, 1951; postwar relief, 1962.

  • 1946 Karen Silkwood born Longwood, TX (d. 1974). Anti-nuclear activist; chemist; union leader. Revealed plutonium hazards at Crescent, OK Kerr-Magee plant that courts later found to be true.

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

  • 1995 Faith Meckley born Geneva, NY. Environmental activist; college journalism student. Participated in Great March for Climate Action, May 2014, and Keystone protest, Washington D.C., August 2014; arrested for trespassing in protest against fracking, Seneca Lake, 2014.

  • 1999 Heela Yoon born Afghanistan. currently living in the United Kingdom as a refugee. She is the founder of Afghan Youth Ambassadors for Peace Organization (AYAPO), a grassroots NGO working in the Eastern provinces of Afghanistan.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1942 Norwegian teachers began resistance to Nazi teaching instructions.

  • 2014 Premiere of Nobel Women’s Initiative film Partners for Peace, chronicling women Nobelists' mission to Palestine.

  • 2014 South Sudan women protested war. “All we ask for is peace so that we can go back to our lives.”