July 7

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1901 Esther Caukin Brunauer born Jackson, CA (d. 1959). American internationalist; expert on establishing international organizations.

  • 1915 Margaret Walker Alexander born Birmingham, AL (d. 1998). African-American novelist and poet; SNCC leader.

  • 1935 Dorothy Stang born Dayton, OH (d. 2005). Catholic sister. Awarded posthumous UN Human Rights Prize.

  • 1940 Jetsun Pema born Takster, Amdo, Tibet. "Mother of Tibet." Sister of Dalai Lama. Minister of Education, 1991; President, Tibetan Childrens Villages.

  • 1941 Barbara Garson born Brooklyn, NY. American playwright, author and activist; wrote popular anti-Vietnam war play "MacBird!", a parody of Shakespeare’s "Macbeth," 1967. Socialist Vice-Presidential candidate, 1992.

  • 1944 Glenys Kinnock born Roade, Northamptonshire, England. Internationalist; anti-Apartheid leader; advocate for third world development. Founded One World Action, 1989. Welsh member of European Parliament, 1994-2009. British Minister for UN and Africa, 2009-10; Minister for Europe 2010.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1915 In The Hague, Emily Balch, Aletta Jacobs, Chrystal MacMillan, Cornelia Ramondt-Hirschmann, and Rosika Schwimmer made personal appeal to Dutch Prime Minister Cort van der Linden to intervene for peace.

  • 1919 Carolena Wood, Jane Addams, and Alice Hamilton arrived in Berlin on first postwar peace mission.

  • 1954 UN Human Rights Convention on Political Rights of Women in effect.

  • 1955 In Lausanne, Switzerland, 1200 women gathered at the World Congress of Women.

  • 1991 Sister Marilyn Pray and Mary Rose Palumbo sentenced to jail for Good Friday protest at Seneca Depot.

  • 2003 Creativity for Peace’s first summer camp for Palestinian and Israeli girls held in Glorietta, NM; run by three women: Debra Sugerman, Rachel Kaufman, and Anael Harpaz.

  • 2013 In India, 101 women farmers from the city of Junagadh sent Prime Minister Narendra Modi a letter written in blood to protest a highway expansion plan that would annex fertile farmland.

  • 2015 In Addison, VT, 40 members of Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp (TWAC) blocked truck transporting fracked gas; 5 arrested.