NINE NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES
The inventor of dynamite, so the story goes, regretted his contribution to war and established prizes in his name. Peace was one of the first five categories honored. Since 1901, twenty Americans have won the Nobel Peace Prize. The list includes four presidents and seven diplomats, but it also includes nine extraordinary citizens who took peace into their own hands.
1931 — Jane Addams and Nicolas Murray Butler “for their assiduous effort to revive the ideal of peace and to rekindle the spirit of peace in their own nation and in the whole of mankind.” Butler, president of Columbia University, convinced tycoon Andrew Carnegie to start the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, then chaired the group. Addams, along with founding Hull House and the settlement movement for immigrants, was co-founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Another WILPF co-founder was. . .
1946 — Emily Greene Balch — “for her lifelong work in the cause of peace.” Balch, an economist, activist, and college professor wrote, lobbied, and spoke out for disarmament and demilitarization.
1947 — The American Friends Service Committee “for their pioneering work in the international peace movement and compassionate effort to relieve human suffering, thereby promoting the fraternity between nations." Founded in 1917, the AFSC tapped the pacifist writings of Quakers to lobby tirelessly against war.
1962 — Chemist Linus Pauling “for his fight against the nuclear arms race between East and West.” A Nobel winning chemist, Pauling risked his influence and reputation to work for a ban on atmospheric nuclear testing.
1964 — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population."
1970 — Norman Borlaug — Though not a peace activist, Borlaug was honored for his work in developing the grains that fostered “a well-founded hope — the green revolution.”
1997 — Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines “for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.”
2007 — Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”
