January 3

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1793 Lucretia Mott born Nantucket, RI (d. 1880). Quaker nonviolent abolitionist and feminist. Co-organized the Seneca Falls Convention; co-founded Swarthmore College.

  • 1881 Sophy Sanger born Westcott, Surrey, England (d. 1950). British internationalist and labor reformer. Barred from Hague Women's Peace Congress, 1915; founding member of WILPF.

  • 1928 Nan Cross born Pretoria, South Africa (d. 2007). South African opponent of Apartheid and conscription. Co-founded Conscientious Objector Support Group, 1980; End Conscription Campaign, 1983; Ceasefire Campaign against arms trade, 1993.

  • 1932 Setsuko Thurlow born Hiroshima, Japan. Canadian hibakusha survivor of Hiroshima bombing, 1945. Social worker; speaker; several world voyages on Peace Boat; awarded the Order of Merit, Canada's highest honor, for her peace work, 2007.

  • 1946 Maureen Harding Clark born Scotland. Served as Irish judge on International Criminal Court, 2002-06; presided over Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, 1999.

  • 1953 Kate Dewes born Hawera, New Zealand. Peace activist and professor of peace studies, Canterbury University. Pioneered World Court Project, 1986; won ruling against nuclear weapons, 1996. Director of South Island Regional Office of Aotearoa/New Zealand Peace foundation for over 30 years. Vice-President, International Peace Bureau, 1997-2003. UN disarmament adviser, 2009.

  • 1958 Liya Kebede born Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Supermodel and actress. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador, 2005.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • Feast of St. Genevieve (c. 422-500), who saved Paris from capture by Huns c. 451.

  • 1971 Bella Abzug introduced resolution against Vietnam War on her first day in Congress.

  • 1983 44 Greenham women tried at Newbury for dancing on missile silos.

  • 1995 Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia protested Chechen War in Red Square, Moscow.

  • 2007 Alicia Barcena Ibarra appointed UN Under-Secretary for Management.

  • 2010 Human rights activist Josefina Reyes assassinated in Chihuahua, Mexico.