July 1

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1804 George Sand born Paris, France (d. 1876). Prolific novelist, playwright; successful appeal to power of Louis Napoleon for prisoners.

  • 1838 Johanne Meyer born Aalborg, Denmark (d. 1915). Pioneering radical suffragist; editor and orator; democratic socialist. Longtime leader of Danish Peace Society. Founding member, Danish Women’s Peace Association, 1906.

  • 1876 Karen Jeppe born Gylling, Denmark (d. 1935). "Danish Mother of the Armenians"; teacher who cared for victims of genocide.

  • 1895 Lucy Somerville Howorth born Greenville, MS (d. 1997). "Judge Lucy." Lawyer, politician, feminist; keynote speaker at White House conference on women in postwar peace 1944.

  • 1904 Mary S. Calderone born Paris (d. 1998). Quaker Medical Director of Planned Parenthood 1953; founded SIECUS Sex Info & Education 1964; American pioneer in sex education; lifelong absolute pacifist.

  • 1923 Paula Helen Hollmen Tasso (d. 2010). WILPF Representative at UN 1988-2000; political activist working for environment and racial and economic justice; two visits to Soviet Union to present workshops on Bruntland Report on international environment.

  • 1935 Rini Templeton born Buffalo, NY (d. 1986). Anti-war artist.

  • 1940 Ela Gandhi born Phoenix Ashram, Natal, South Africa. Granddaughter of Gandhi, opponent of Apartheid; under house arrest nine years 1975-83; member of S. African parliament 1994-2004; opposed domestic violence.

  • 1948 Monika Stocker born Aarau, Switzerland. Swiss politician, peace advocate; Green party member Swiss National Council 1987-91; co-sponsor 1000 Women for Nobel Prize 2005; co-president PeaceWomen Across the Globe; president feminist Swiss Christian Peace Service (cfd) 2010.

  • 1951 Anne Feeney born Charleroi, PA. American singer and activist lawyer; album Wild Wimmin for Peace: The Great Peace March, 1986; active protests against Vietnam War and Apartheid; arrested 1972 Miami protesting Nixon’s nomination; arrested 2017 Day Without a Woman.

  • 1955 Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe born Iganda, Uganda. Ugandan surgeon; politician. Vice-president of Uganda, first woman to hold that position of an African nation, 1994-2003. Founded African Women Committee on Peace and Development (AWCPD) to increase women's involvement in African peacemaking processes, 1998. Appointed UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, 2013.

  • 1961 Diana, Princess of Wales born Sandringham, Norfolk (d. 1997). Influential leader in campaign against landmines 1997, visiting Bosnia and Angola war zones; pioneer in compassion for victims of AIDS 1987.

  • 1971 Sabiha Husić born Donja Večeriska, Vitez, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. Muslim war refugee; psychotherapist; Director of Medica Zenica, aiding Balkan War victims, 2007; organized Network for Victims and Witnesses for women survivors of rape and sexual violence, 2011; Joan Kroc Woman Peacemaker, 2013.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1915 First Public Protest against World War I by Frances and Marie Mayoux at Tours, France. "Enough Blood Shed!"

  • 1944 Nazi court sentenced pacifist FOR leader Elizabeth von Thadden to death.

  • 1969 Five Women Against Daddy Warbucks destroyed draft files Manhattan.

  • 1970 Eight Draft Files destroyed by Women Against Daddy Warbucks.

  • 1975 Mexico City Declaration on Women.

  • 1982 Death of ERA marked by women defacing public property in D.C.

  • 1987 Concepcion Picciotto arrested for permanent vigil outside White House.

  • 1992 First WILPF conference in Latin America, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

  • 2001 Lindis Percy arrested and de-arrested for "Independence FROM America" protest at US embassy London.