Saralee Hamilton

Overview

Saralee Hamilton born Glasgow, PA October 28, 1945 (d. 2006). American feminist; nonviolence activist. Co-founded New American Movement in opposition to Vietnam War, 1971; founded AFSC Nationwide Women’s Program, 1975. Worked with women for peace in Central America and Southeast Asia.

Quotations

“The multinational corporations have deliberately targeted women for exploitation. If feminism is going to mean anything to women all over the world, it's going to have to find new ways to resist corporate power internationally.” (Ms. Magazine, Spring 2002; photo 5 colleges archives)

Marianne Hamilton

Overview

Marianne Hamilton (née DeVay) born Minneapolis, MN March 26, 1920 (d. 2017). Peace activist for 66 years. Co-founded Minnesota United World Federalists to outlaw war, 1951, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), 1982. Made two trips to Hanoi to secure release of 3 US POWs, 1971. Protested US intervention in Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Tibet, and Syria; opposed US military toxins in Philippines. Peace work in Cambodia and Burma; aided conscientious objectors.

Quotations

“It’s pretty hard to outlaw war when there are people making money on it! . . . We were never able to do that, unfortunately. So then we started protesting—it was the obvious thing to do, to protest the politicians.” (WAMM Newsletter, Nov. 6, 2017; photo startribune.com)

Anna Grossnickle Hines

Overview

Anna Grossnickle Hines born Cincinnati, OH July 13, 1946. Children’s book author and illustrator; teacher and poet. Published Peace Pieces: Poems and Quilts About Peace, 2011.

Quotations

“Peace has always been important to me, all kinds of peace, from an inner calm to the end of wars all over the earth.”

the voices on NPR discuss suicide bombs, starvation, 
rape, increased troop levels, torture
I stitch my quilts. . .
I sit in meditation on my cushion
sending loving kindness to all beings. . .

Everything is sacred Everything connected 
I stitch and tend and smile and listen and pray 
and breathe It counts 
It all counts

(“Creating Peaceful Pieces”; photo aghinescom)

Helena Hill

Overview

Helena Hill Weed born Norwalk, CT August 15, 1875 (d. 1958). Suffragist; one of first women geologists. Arrested three times; jailed three days for banner quoting Declaration of Independence: “GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWER FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.” Sentenced to six months at Occoquan Prison workhouse, 1918. Anti-imperialist Secretary Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society. Founded Women’s Press Club.

Quotations

“How Haiti was reduced to the state of a conquered province; how the process was prepared in Washington long before intervention began; how little excuse there was for American intervention, and how little America has accomplished there apart from killing Haitians—these things have become a matter of public record.” (Nation, Nov. 9, 1921; photo suffragist memorial)

Florence Holbrook

Overview

Florence Holbrook born Peru, IL May 30, 1860 (d. 1932). Chicago educator, poet, and suffragist; ardent pacifist. Delegate to Women's Peace Congress, 1915. American Peace Society, 1913. Sailed on Ford Peace Ship, 1915; John Dewey mission to Russia, 1928.

Quotations

“In your hands more than any other lies the future of the world. 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.” (Florence Holbrook, Kate Blake, and Grace DeGraff, To the Teachers of All the World, 1915; portrait Univ. South Florida)

Alice Riggs Hunt

Overview

Alice Riggs Hunt born Manhattan, NY June 14, 1884 (d. 1974). Peace activist, journalist, and poet; suffragist orator. Correspondent at Versailles Peace Conference, 1919; youth delegate to WILPF Congress, Zurich, 1919.

Quotations

“As Pacifists we should appeal to every kind of young woman.” (Report of Congress p. 141; photo Univ. Waterloo)

Helga Herz

Overview

Helga Herz born Güstrow, Mecklenburg, Germany August 9, 1912 (d. 2010). Second-generation American peace activist with Detroit WILPF and Wayne State University Center for Peace; Librarian, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. Carried on the work of her mother Alice Herz, the first American to die of self-immolation, protesting Vietnam War, 1965.

Quotations

On her mother's death: “She was trying to give her final witness to her abhorrence for all war.” (Detroit News, March 18, 1965; photo 40 days with peacemakers)

bell hooks

Overview

bell hooks (née Gloria Jean Watkins) born Hopkinsvillle, KY September 25, 1952. African-American feminist, writer, and nonviolent social activist; anti-militarist, anti-imperialist. Follower of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quotations

“The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.”

“Central to that love is the question of forgiveness. . . the civil rights movement. . . was so effective, because it urged people to value forgiving one's enemies.” (CNN interview, Feb. 17, 2000)

“Advocates of feminism who are concerned about militarism must insist that feminists must insist that women are not inherently life-affirming or non-violent. Many women who mother are very violent. . . Feminists must insist that women who do choose (whether or not they are inspired by motherhood) to denounce violence, domination, and its ultimate expression—war—are political thinkers making political choices.” (Talking Back, p. 95; photo Charlie Rose)

Amy Hagopian

Overview

Amy Hagopian born Ann Arbor, MI November 27, 1955. Peace activist against nuclear weapons, Iraq War, Gaza. Professor of Public Health, focusing on war’s effect on health and its prevention. Received American Pubic Heath Association Peace Award, 2018.

Quotations

“War is, of course, toxic to health. War produces death, disables people and erodes infrastructure that supports health, yet it is entirely preventable.” (University of Washington School of Public Global Health; photo Univ. Wash. Global Health)

Doris Haddock

Overview

"Granny D" Doris Haddock born Laconia, NH January 24, 1910. Walked 3200 miles from Pasadena, CA to Washington DC in support of campaign finance reform, 1999.

Quotations

"Do not act from anger; the defense of freedom and fairness comes best from a loving and tolerant heart." (Hampshire College commencement, May 21, 2005; photo Wikipedia)

Elizabeth Haddon

Overview

Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh born Southwark, London, England May 25, 1680 (d. 1762). Only American woman to found a frontier town, Haddonfield, NJ, 1701; Quaker who befriended local Lenape tribe with nonviolence.

Quotations

"I have received from the Lord a charge to love thee, John Estaugh." (Longfellow's "Theologian's Tale")

Sarah Josepha Hale

Overview

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale born Newport, NH October 24, 1788 (d. 1879). Poet; editor; teacher in Boston Ladies Peace Society; "Mother of Thanksgiving" for getting Lincoln to proclaim first holiday in appeal for truce in Civil War.

Quotations

Then Woman is the star of home,
That guides to peace.

(Epistle to Miss TH; port. by James R. Lambdin 1831)

Joan Halifax

Overview

Joan Halifax born Hanover, NH June 30, 1942. Zen master (rōshi); anthropologist; activist against Vietnam War and for civil rights, 1960s. Founder and Abbot of Upaya Zen Peacemaking Center, Santa Fe, 1990.

Quotations

"US, do not bomb Syria. Violence does not end with violence. . . as one person said: war is so over! feed people. educate people, love people. communicate, reach across lines, send instead of guns, send bread, send women, send books, send the strength of our hearts, not fear, not retribution. eye for an eye is not the way." (Facebook, September 9, 2013; Wikipedia photo with Dalai Lama)

Prathia Hall

Overview

Prathia Hall born Philadelphia, PA January 1, 1940 (d. 2002). Nonviolent leader of civil rights movement. Early woman organizer of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in SW Georgia, 1961; Albany movement; Selma, 1963. Credited with phrase “I have a Dream!” Often shot at and arrested; Martin Luther King. Jr. professor, Boston University.

Quotations

"We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes." (Wikipedia; photo penny liberty)

Fannie Lou Hamer

Overview

Fannie Lou Hamer born Ruleville, MS October 6, 1917 (d. 1977). Civil rights activist; organizer of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 1962; nonviolent trainer for Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964.

Quotations

"We are sick and tired of our people having to go to Vietnam and other places to fight for something we don't have here." (1964 photo Wikipedia)

Alice Hamilton

Overview

Alice Hamilton born New York, NY February 27, 1869 (d. 1970). Physician; pioneer in industrial toxicology. Co-founded WILPF, 1915; went on peace mission to capitals of belligerent nations with Jane Addams; US representative to League of Nations Health Committee. Opposed Cold War and Vietnam War.

Quotations

“We may come to see that they who appear to be the victors have lost the things that really matter, and that the losers may in the end have won them; that they who drew the sword have perished by the sword while the dumb, mute masses whom they led into war remain to possess the earth.” (The New Republic, Jun. 24, 1919, p. 245, cited in Vicki McCoy thesis)

“Nor can you sow war and harvest peace. The seeds of war can only produce more wars.” (“Because War Breeds War”, Catt and Hamilton, Why Wars Must Cease, 1935, p. 128; photo Spartacus Educational)

Judith Hand

Overview

Judith Hand born Cherokee, OK February 4, 1940. American biologist; ethologist; novelist. Pioneered study of biological origins of war.

Quotations

“Because of genetic inclinations that are as deeply rooted as the bonding-for-aggression inclinations of men, most women would prefer to make or keep the peace, the sooner the better.” (Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace, 2003, p. 45)

“If women around the world in the twenty-first century would get their act together they could, partnered with men of like mind, shift the direction of world history to create a future without war.” (A Future Without War, 2006, p. 53; photo afww.wordpress.com)

Daryl Hannah

Overview

Daryl Hannah born Chicago, IL December 3, 1960. Actress; eco-activist who has protested whaling, logging, sexual slavery, Amazon oil; jailed for farm protest; participated in civil disobedience against Iraq War, Los Angeles, 2006; arrested 2006, 2009, 2011.

Quotations

"All of the actions we take that result in health crises, environmental degradation, slavery, extinctions and war as interlinked, so I do what I can to try to share information in order to enable ourselves to make wiser, more informed choices." (Off-grid 101, Nov. 3, 2009; photo 2009 wiki commons pd)

Lorraine Hansberry

Overview

Lorraine Hansberry born Chicago, IL May 19, 1930 (d. 1965). Playwright who wrote first Black play for Broadway, "A Raisin in the Sun", 1959; supported Women Strike for Peace opposition to House Un-American Activities Committee investigation 1962.

Quotations

"In these perilous times, when the fate of the world is in such delicate balance, the fullest debate of the issue of war and peace is vital to survival. . . Freedom of ideas has always been a national necessity." (photo Wikipedia)

Sarah Harder

Overview

Sarah Harder born Chicago, IL September 9, 1937. President National Peace Foundation 2000; feminist professor; president AAUW 1985-9; President of Women for Meaningful Summit encouraging end of Cold War 1990; co-chaired the 1990 Soviet-American Women's Summit; leader of International Federation of University Women and NOW; promoted UN peacemaking and gender equality; peacemaking in Caucasus 1992. Coined term "feminization of power."

Quotations

"Feminization of power uses the power of inclusion and engagement with the understanding that the more you bring together, the more energy you create." (Marci Korb interview, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, "Vision"; photo sophia.smith)