Common Hour Speaker Receives Nobel Peace Prize
Peace activist Leymah Gbowee, who delivered a Common Hour presentation at Franklin & Marshall College in March 2010, was one of three women to receive the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway.
Gbowee shared the prize with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman, an advocate for democracy in Yemen. The women received the prize “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
In her Nobel Lecture, Gbowee accepted the award in the name of women who continue to work for peace, equality and justice around the world.
“This prize could not have come at a better time than this, a time when global and community conversations are about how local community members and unarmed civilians can help turn our upside-down world, right-side up,” Gbowee said. “It has come at a time when
 unarmed citizens—men and women, boys and girls—are challenging dictatorships and ushering in democracy and the sovereignty of people.”
Click here to read Gbowee’s complete Nobel Lecture.
Gbowee led the coalition of Christian and Muslim women’s groups that ended the decades-long civil war in Liberia in 2003. She has received numerous awards in addition to her Nobel Peace Prize, including the Blue Ribbon for Peace from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Gbowee was the keynote speaker at F&M’s International Women’s Week in 2010. The event took place during the College’s yearlong celebration of the 40th anniversary of coeducation. Gbowee’s visit was sponsored by the International Studies Program, Africana Studies Program, Alice Drum Women’s Center, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Center for Liberal Arts & Society, Public Affairs Lecture Fund and the 40th Anniversary of Coeducation Committee.
