February 20

Women peacemakers born today

  • 1805 Angelina Grimké Weld born Charleston, SC (d. 1879). Garrisonian abolitionist; nonviolent pacifist; Quaker women's rights speaker.

  • 1882 Margarethe Fass-Hardegger born Bern, Switzerland (d. 1963). Swiss union organizer. Militant feminist, anti-militarist, and suffragist. Co-founded Socialist League. Led first women’s strike. Arrested twice for advocating birth control; sentenced to one year in prison. Founded three anarchist communes. Advocated abolition of Swiss army.

  • 1941 Buffy Sainte-Marie born Saskatchewan, Canada. Canadian First Nation (Cree) singer; adherent of Bahá'í faith of international peace. Her song "Universal Soldier" protested the Vietnam War, 1963.

  • 1959 Sim Sang-jung born Paju, South Korea. Leader of opposition Justice Party 2015; Labor organizer; feminist; presidential candidate 2017 won 7%; favors non-nuclear peninsula; opposes THAAD missile defense.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1957 UN General Assembly approved Convention on Nationality of Women.

  • 1983 Petra Kelly advanced the German Green Party's Nuremberg Appeal, opposing nuclear weapons.

  • 1985 "Peace Exercises" protest of Songsters Opposed to Nuclear Genocide, in New Haven, Connecticut.

  • 1995 Four women arrested at Livermore Lab for climbing fence to protest violations of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

  • 1996 First performance of Raging Grannies, Olympia, WA.
    Oh, we are a gaggle of grannies
    Urging you off your fannies
    We’re raising our voice
    We’re sick of your toys
    NO MORE WAR!”