May 21

Women peacemakers born today

• 1780 Elizabeth Fry born Norwich, England (d. 1845). "Angel of the Prisons." English Quaker prison reformer; advocate for homeless.

• 1800 Susan Sisson born Portsmouth, RI (d. 1882). American Quaker abolitionist. Founding member of New England Non-Resistance Society, 1838.

• 1889 Germaine Malaterre-Sellier born Paris, France (d. 1967). French feminist and suffrage leader. Vice-President, Women’s Union for the League of Nations (UFSDN); Vice-President, International League for Moral Disarmament by Women; President of peace section, National Council of French Women. Chaired Peace Committee of International Council of Women.

• 1899 Ilse Langner born Breslau, Germany (d. 1987). German antiwar playwright and poet.

• 1908 Olga Poblete de Espinosa born Tacna, Chile (d. 1999). Chilean peace activist; professor of world history and education; feminist “founding matriarch” of Movement for Emancipation of Women (MEMCH). Founded Chilean peace movement, 1950; assumed its presidency, 1960; openly opposed Pinochet dictatorship, 1973. Awarded World Peace Council gold medal, 1959; Lenin Peace Prize, 1962.

• 1930 Rita Corbin born Indianapolis, IN (d. 2011). Anti-war artist; Catholic Worker.

• 1944 Mary Robinson born Ballina, Mayo, Ireland. International Human Rights Law professor. First woman president of Ireland, 1990-97. Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience for Human Rights, 2004.

• 1949 Marsha Feinland born Far Rockaway, NY. Teacher; union leader; Peace and Freedom candidate for president, 1996; won 243,407 votes for US Senate, 2004.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1660 Quaker Mary Dyer returned to Boston after being whipped out of Massachusetts and threatened with capital punishment if she returned.

• 1881 Clara Barton organized American Red Cross in Washington DC.

• 1930 Sarojini Naidu led nonviolent salt protests at Dharasana; 320 injured, two killed, Naidu arrested.

• 2000: Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls led Blue Ribbon Peace Vigil of multi-ethnic women protesting military coup, Suva, Fiji.

• 2015 In London, two Alaskan indigenous women passed out origami “roses of resistance” to Shell oil executives to protest drilling.

May 22

Women peacemakers born today

• 1870 Eva Gore-Booth born Lissaway, Sligo, Ireland (d. 1928). Irish pacifist poet and dramatist; suffragist; WILPF member. Published essay on nonviolence during World War I, 1915; wrote nonviolent play "Fionavar."

• 1943 Betty Williams born Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded Northern Irish Peace People with Mairead Corrigan, 1976; shared Nobel Peace Prize, 1976.

• 1949 Gila Altmann born Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Green Party member of parliament, 1994; Deputy Minister for Environment and Nuclear Safety.

• 1960 Shukrije Gashi born Pristina, Kosovo, Yugoslavia. Mediator; poet; journalist; lawyer. Director of Partners Center for Conflict Management, Kosovo; imprisoned two years for advocacy for Kosovo.

• 1983 Lina Ben Mhenni born Tunisia. Blogger. Chronicled Arab Spring revolt in her blog A Tunisian Girl, 2011. Arrested for protest against censorship, 2010. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2011; awarded Sean MacBride Peace Prize, 2012.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1917 Eight women from the New York Bureau of Legal First Aid offered the first legal aid to conscientious objectors.

• 1931 Death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams.

• 2008 In Rovereto, Italy, women from 13 nations met and established the Religions for Peace European Women of Faith Network.

May 23

Women peacemakers born today

• 1810 Margaret Fuller born Cambridgeport, MA (d. 1850). Transcendentalist poet and author; teacher at Bronson Alcott's Temple School. Pioneering feminist and supporter of Italian unity; opponent of capital punishment; co-founder of Brook Farm.

• 1855 Isabella Ford born Headingley, Leeds (d. 1924). English social reformer; suffragist; Quaker; labor organizer. Lifelong pacifist who opposed World War I;  WILPF founding member.

• 1926 Aileen Clarke Hernandez born Brooklyn, NY. Civil rights leader; feminist. Second national president of National Organization of Women, 1970-71; Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

• 1931 Louise Bruyn (née Muenzer) born Chicago, IL. Quaker peace activist. Walked 450 miles from Newton, MA to Washington DC in 45 days to protest expansion of Vietnam War to Laos, 1971. Published memoir She Walked for All of Us: One Woman’s 1971 Protest Against an Illegal War, 2013.

• 1933 Ilaben Pathak born Gujarat, India (d. 2014). Pioneering feminist. Gandhian social reformer; linguistics professor. President, WILPF India; vice-president, WILPF International. Co-founded Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group (AWAG), 1981.

• 1956 Ursula Plassnik born Klagenfurt, Austria. Austrian Foreign Minister, 2004-08; European delegate to reform of UN Human Rights Committee. Led negotiations on Croatia and Turkey's admission to European Union; as President of European Assembly, brought all members back to unity talks, 2005.

• 1970 Ayo Ayoola-Amale born Jos, Nigeria. Ghanaian poet, lawyer, and peacemaker. Founding president, Ghana WILPF. Began Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC), Accra.

• 1974 Jewel Kilcher born Payson, UT. Singer and poet. Founded Higher Ground for Humanity with her mother Lenedra Carroll, 1999; established ClearWater Project.

• 1996 Neha Gupta born New Zealand. American humanitarian; founded Empowering Orphans when she was nine 2005; International Children’s Peace Prize 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1907 Finland held the world's first elections with universal suffrage, electing 19 women to Parliament.

• 1930 Sarojini Naidu sentenced to 9 months in prison for salt protest.

• 1953 International Labor Organization treaty on equal pay for women goes into effect.

• 2000 Conflict Transformation in Africa: African Women’s Perspectives, Dakar.

• 2002 Heidi Tagliavini appointed UN representative in Georgia.

• 2013 Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin interrupted President Obama’s speech on drones and Guantanamo Bay prison. Obama said, “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to."

May 24

Women peacemakers born today

• 1826 Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin born Geneva, Switzerland (d. 1899). Pioneering Swiss feminist and pacifist. Co-founded the first international women's peace society, International League for Peace and Freedom, 1868; founded first international women’s association, Association internationale des Femmes, 1868.

• 1908 Maria Lavalle Urbina born Campeche, Mexico (d. 1996). Mexican lawyer and educator. Chair of UN Committee on Status of Women, 1963. First woman president of Mexican Senate, 1965.

• 1927 Maude Barlow born Toronto, Canada. Nonviolent internationalist. Co-founded nonviolent Council of Canadians, 1985; Blue Planet Project, 2001; World Future Council, 2004. Received Right Livelihood Award, 2005.

• 1959 Monika Hauser born Thal, St. Gall, Switzerland. Gynecologist. Founded Medica Mondiale to help women victims of war. Received Right Livelihood Award, 2008; named European of the year, 2011.

• 1959 Eren Keskin born Bursa, Turkey. Turkish human rights leader. Founded Legal Aid for Women who were raped by national security forces, 1997; Awarded Aachen Peace Prize 2004.

• 1974 Ruslana born Lviv, Ukraine. European pop star. UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, 2005. Member of Ukrainian Parliament, 2006-07. Led nonviolent protests in Orange Revolution, 2004, and Euromaidan protests, 2013-14.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1901 Emily Hobhouse's first visit to South African concentration camp Bloemfontein.

• 1906 Suffragist Dora Montefiore refused taxes and barricaded her home.

• 1973 Children's Defense Fund founded by Marian Wright Edelman.

• 1980 Northeast Womyn’s Alliance blockaded Seabrook nuclear plant.

• 1982 Greenham Women started first International Day of Disarmament: 70 British local actions.

• 1983 "Women All Out for Peace" 600 local British actions.

• 1983 Women’s Peace Camp opened at Soesterberg AFB, Netherlands.

• 1984 Largest protest of New Zealand women against nuclear tests, Auckland.

• 1991 First Australian conference on Social Defense held Ballina, NSW on initiative of Robyn Whyte, featuring nonviolent defense against aggression.

• 1995 International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament first celebrated.

• 1995 Dominican nuns Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert arrested in nonviolent protest at Johns Hopkins University.

• 2011 Code Pink member Rae Abileah interrupted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress and was assaulted by the audience. She was later arrested at George Washington University Hospital.

• 2012 Women in Black of Madrid issued a communique against war. "We affirm our confidence in dialogue, justice and nonviolence as a path to understanding among peoples."

• 2015 Thirty women, including Gloria Steinem and Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee and Mairead Maguire, crossed the Korean DMZ in an appeal for peace.

May 25

Women peacemakers born today

• 1680 Elizabeth Haddon born Southwark, London (d. 1762). Quaker. Only American woman to found a frontier town, Haddonfield NJ, 1701. Befriended local Lenape tribe with nonviolence.

• 1882 Alice Herz born Hamburg, Germany (d. 1965). Librarian; peace activist. Jewish refugee denied citizenship for her refusal to defend country by arms. Died of burns after self-immolation to protest Vietnam War, Detroit, 1965.

• 1900 Eva Hermann (née Lüddecke) born Grünenplan bei Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany (d. 1997). German Quaker. Involved with Fellowship of Reconciliation. Sentenced to three years in prison, 1943. Honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” for her efforts to saving Jews during World War II.

• 1953 Eve Ensler born Scarsdale, NY. Pacifist author and filmmaker; playwright of anti-violence play "The Vagina Monologues", 2000.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1888 International Council of Women met Washington DC, addressed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

• 1985 Greenham base invaded by 400 women against Anne Francis's sentence to a year in jail.

• 1995 Navi Pillay of South Africa elected judge of Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal.

• 2006 First Nation activist Harriet Nahanee and Betty Krawczck arrested for environmental protest Vancouver.

• 2008 “Message to the World” of peace and love song released by Nancy Ajram.

May 26

Women peacemakers born today

• 1909 Eugenie Anderson born Adair, IA (d. 1997). League of Women Voters leader. First American woman to serve as ambassador, to Denmark, 1949-1953; Bulgaria, 1962-64. US delegate to UN 1965-69.

• 1916 Henriette Roosenburg born Netherlands (d. 1972). Journalist in Dutch resistance. Condemned to death by Germans.

• 1938 May Blood born Belfast, Northern Ireland. Labor organizer and community leader. First woman from Northern Ireland to join House of Lords. Co-founded women’s party Northern Ireland Woman’s Coalition (NIWC), 1996.

• 1966 Rebecca Masika Katsuva born Democratic Republic of Congo (d. 2016). “Mama Masika.” Victim of multiple wartime rapes; set up refuges for rape victims, South Kivu.

• 1969 Annike Spalde born Sweden. Swedish peace activist with Ofog (Mischief) DISARM group; arrested for break-in at Bofors arms plant 2008; jailed six months; protested arms for Indonesian use in Timor 1996; arrested in Bread Not Bombs campaign against Trident sub at Barrow 1998.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1872 In Rutherford, New Jersey, Lucretia Mott delivered her sermon "Peace of Nations."

• 1958 Women's Caravan of Peace, organized by Dora Russell, departed London.

• 1991 Opening of Ovum Pacis, the Women's International Peace University by Marcia Mason and Alice Wiser, Burlington, VT.

• 2013 Men and Women Working as Partners for Gender-Sensitive Active Nonviolence, The Hague.

May 27

Women peacemakers born today

• 1818 Amelia Jenks Bloomer born Homer, NY (d. 1894). American leader against domestic violence; temperance leader and dress reformer; first editor of The Lily, paper wholly edited by women, 1849.

• 1819 Julia Ward Howe born Manhattan, NY (d. 1910). Pacifist leader. Wrote "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 1862. Founded Women's International Peace Association, 1871; established first Mothers' Peace Day, 1873.

• 1844 May Wright Sewall born Greenfield, WI (d. 1920). American suffragist and peace leader through World War I. Organized International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace, 1915; sailed on Ford's peace ship to stop war, 1915-16.

• 1900 Magda Portal born Barranco, Peru (d. 1989). Peruvian poet and feminist; anti-imperialist. Leader of Vanguardia literary movement. Founding member of Apristas, a nonviolent socialist revolutionary party.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1915 In Vienna, Aletta Jacobs made personal appeal for peace to Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister von Burian.

• 1992 First government attempt to evict Greenham women failed.

• 1993 Rigoberta Menchú's petition for restoration of democratic government led to the overthrow of Guatemalan dictatorship.

• 2009 British authorities arrested Maya Evans outside Northwood Military Headquarters for taking part in a die-in protest to commemorate the second anniversary of the NATO bombing of a wedding party which resulted in the deaths of 47 Afghan civilians.

• 2015 In San Francisco, Iraqi mother Sundus Shaker Saleh filed an appeal to her previously-dismissed lawsuit that the Bush Administration acted illegally in waging the Iraq War.

May 28

Women peacemakers born today

• 1918 Marie-Luise Jahn born Gut Sandlach, Prussia. Peace advocate; physician. Member of anti-Nazi White Rose resistance; sentenced to 12 years hard labor, 1944.

• 1961 Djimi el Ghalia born Agadir, Morocco. Western Saharan nonviolent human rights activist. “Disappeared” in Moroccan custody, 1987-91. Vice-president of Sahrawi human rights organization ASVDH.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1962 Women Doukhobors disrobed before Prime Minister Diefenbaker in protest, Trail, BC.

• 1982 Seven women fasted 10 days for Equal Rights Amendment, Springfield, IL.

• 2013 Five grandmothers arrested for drone protest at Volk Field, Wisconsin; fined $232.

May 29

Women peacemakers born today

• 1830 Louise Michel born Vroncourt, Lorraine, France (d. 1905). "The red virgin of Montmartre." Nurse and school teacher; anarchist. Member of the Paris Commune who stood against French government soldiers.

• 1873 Elizabeth Cutter Morrow born Cleveland, OH (d. 1955). Internationalist; poet; mother of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Promoted reconciliation with Mexico with ambassador husband Dwight; founded Food for Freedom.

• 1947 Franghiz Ali-Zadeh born Baku, Azerbaijan. Pianist and composer. Named UNESCO Artist for Peace for "her contribution to spreading UNESCO’s message of peace and tolerance," 2008.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1961 In Jackson, Mississippi, Clarie Collins Harvey founded Womanpower Unlimited to aid Freedom Riders; relying on “the inner, divine power of women, as all women work together for peace among the people of a given community, nation, and in the world.”

• 1966 Three Vietnamese women died of self-immolation: 57-year-old nun Thich Nu Tran Quang at Dieu de Pagoda, Hue; Nun Thich Nu Vinh Ngoc, Saigon; laywoman Ho Thi Thieu, Saigon.

• 1995 Jennifer Harbury went to Guatemala to find her "disappeared" husband.

• 2000 In Windhoek, Namibia, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations opened a seminar to increase the role of women in peacemaking.

• 2009 UN observed International Day of Peacekeeping with emphasis on Women in Peacekeeping: The Power to Empower.

• 2010 Delma Nori launched first Solomon Islands women’s party: 12 Pillars for Peace & Prosperity.

• 2014 Dozens of Liberian war widows protested for benefits, Monrovia.

May 30

Women peacemakers born today

• 1887 Georgiana Sibley (née Farr) born Millbrook, NY (d. 1980). American church woman and leader of ecumenical movement. Served as Church Women United (CWU) official observer at the founding of the UN, 1945. As President of United Council of Church Women, opposed draft, 1945. National president, CWU, 1946-48. Founded Rochester UN Association, 1946. Leader in racial desegregation; urged control of atomic weapons.

• 1937 Margareta Ingelstam born Edebo, Sweden. Swedish educator, author, editor, and peace activist. Head of Swedish Christian Council, 1995-2002. Peace monitoring, South Africa, 1993-94; Network Forum for Peace Service, 1995-2006; EU program Building Culture of Non Violence; Postwar peacebuilding, Eastern Croatia, 1998 -2003. Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (SEAPPI), 2002-present; Operation 1325, 2003-present.

• 1943 Patricia Durrant born Jamaica. Jamaican diplomat. Ambassador to Germany, 1987-92; Director-General Jamaican Foreign Ministry, 1992-95. President of UN Security Council, 2001; first UN Ombudsman, 2002-07.

• 1946 Jo Vallentine born Perth, Australia. Australian Quaker peace activist. Represented Nuclear Disarmament party in Senate, 1985-92. Co-founded Alternatives to Violence Project, 1994.

• 1952 Ruth Manorama born Chennai, India. Champion of India's lowest social caste, the Dalits. Received Right Livelihood Award, 2006.

• 1965 Susana Pacara born Chayanta, Potosí, Bolivia. Quechuan radio journalist and nonviolent organizer. Co-founded Radio Lachiwana in Cochabamba; stood up to government oppression in Coca War, 1993. Fought privatization of water system by American Bechtel Corporation, 2000.

• 1967 Nasrin Sotoudeh born Gilan, Iran. Human rights defender of prisoners including Nobelist Shirin Abadi; arrested 2010 for spreading propaganda and harming state security; held in solitary, sentenced 11 years; 4-week hunger strike 2010; 49-day fast 2012; Sakharov Prize 2012; freed 2013.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1868 On the first widely-celebrated Memorial Day, two women in Columbus, Mississippi placed flowers on the graves of both Confederate and Union victims of the Battle of Shiloh.

• 1915 In Budapest, Jane Addams made personal appeal for peace to Hungarian Prime Minister von Tisza.

• 1991 Mariette Moors imprisoned for nuclear protest, Amsterdam.

• 2013 Six women Nobel Peace Laureates urged G8 leaders to reduce military spending, Belfast.

• 2013 Religion, Gender & Peace conference, The Hague.

May 31

Women peacemakers born today

• 1906 Helen Boyden Lamb Lamont born Cambridge, MA (d. 1965). Economist; expert on India at MIT. Early critic of Vietnam War.

• 1920 Irma Schwager born Vienna, Austria. Pacifist and anti-nuclear protester. Resisted Nazis during occupation of France; exiled, 1938. Visited Vietnam during US bombing, 1971. Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

• 1943 Antje Vollmer born Lübbecke, Westphalia, Germany. Lutheran pastor. Served in Bundestag for 22 years. Joined Green Party, 1983; Vice-President Bundestag 1994-2005. Opposed Kosovo as violation of international law; supported conscientious objection law. Awarded Hannah Arendt Prize, 1998.

• 1948 Svetlana Alexeivich born Stanislau, Ukrainian SR. Belorussian author. War’s Unwomanly Face about World War II, 1988; Zinky Boys portrayed brutality of Afghanistan war, 1992; Voices from Chernobyl, 1997. Received German Book Peace Prize, 2013; Nobel Literature Laureate, 2015.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1531 "Women's Revolt" in woolhouse, Amsterdam.

• 1678 Lady Godiva festival revived in Coventry, celebrating eleventh century woman's naked horse ride in protest of her husband's tax on his tenants.

• 1915 In Christiania, Emily Balch and Chrystal Macmillan met with Danish King Christian X, and Cornelia Ramondt-Hirschmann met with Foreign Minister Ihlen to appeal for peaceful intervention.

• 1966 17-year-old Nyugen Thi Can immolated herself, Hue, Vietnam.

• 1999 Women’s peace camp at RAF Fairford base in Gloucestershire protested Kosovo bombing; 8 women arrested.

• 2000 The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations issued the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action On Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peacekeeping Operations, leading to UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

• 2010: Emily Henochowicz lost her left eye when hit by tear gas canister during nonviolent protest, Qalandiya.