This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usually work with others in the overall anti-war and peace movements to focus the world's attention on what they perceive to be the irrationality of violent conflicts, decisions, and actions. They thus initiate and facilitate wide public dialogues intended to nonviolently alter long-standing societal agreements directly relating to, and held in place by, the various violent, habitual, and historically fearful thought-processes residing at the core of these conflicts, with the intention of peacefully ending the conflicts themselves.

A

 
B. R. Ambedkar
 
Uri Avnery

B

 
Medea Benjamin
 
James Bevel
 
Elise M. Boulding
 
José Bové
 
Caoimhe Butterly
return to table of contents

C

 
Helen Caldicott
 
Montserrat Cervera Rodon
 
Judy Collins
return to table of contents

D

 
Dorothy Day
 
David Dellinger
return to table of contents

E

 
Abdul Sattar Edhi
 
Hedy Epstein
return to table of contents

F

return to table of contents

G

 
Mahatma Gandhi
 
Emma Goldman
 
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet on the 2006 United States Congressional Gold Medal
return to table of contents

H

 
Václav Havel
 
Brian Haw
 
Jessie Wallace Hughan
return to table of contents

I

 
Daisaku Ikeda
return to table of contents

J

 
Kirthi Jayakumar
return to table of contents

K

 
Tawakkol Karman
 
Martin Luther King Jr.
return to table of contents

L

 
Henri La Fontaine
 
John Lennon
 
Bertie Lewis
return to table of contents

M

 
Nelson Mandela
 
Rigoberta Menchú
 
Alaa Murabit
return to table of contents

N

 
Abie Nathan
return to table of contents

O

 
Billboard displaying Yoko Ono's artwork Imagine Peace
  • Phil Ochs (1940–1976) – American anti-Vietnam war singer/songwriter, initiated protest events
  • Paul Oestreich (1878–1959) – German educator, board member of the "German Peace Society" in 1921– 1926
  • Paul Oestreicher (born 1931) – German-born British human rights activist, Canon emeritus of Coventry Cathedral, Christian pacifist, active in post-war reconciliation
  • Yoko Ono (born 1933) – Japanese anti-Vietnam war campaigner in America and Europe
  • Ciaron O'Reilly (born 1960) – Australian pacifist, anti-war activist, Catholic Worker, served prison time in America and Ireland for disarming war material
  • Carl von Ossietzky (1889–1938) – German pacifist, Nobel peace laureate, the opponent of Nazi rearmament
  • Geoffrey Ostergaard (1926–1990) – British political scientist, academic, writer, anarchist, pacifist
  • Laurence Overmire (born 1957) – American poet, author, theorist
return to table of contents

P

 
Medha Patkar
 
Peace Pilgrim
 
Abbé Pierre
return to table of contents

Q

  • Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941) – German pacifist, 1927 Nobel peace laureate
return to table of contents

R

 
Coleen Rowley
return to table of contents

S

 
Carl Sagan
 
Teresa Sarti Strada
 
Albert Schweitzer
 
Cindy Sheehan
return to table of contents

T

 
Thích Nhất Hạnh
 
Leo Tolstoy
return to table of contents

U

return to table of contents

V

 
Kurt Vonnegut
return to table of contents

W

 
Jody Williams
 
Mien van Wulfften Palthe
return to table of contents

X

Y

 
Cheng Yen
return to table of contents

Z

 
Angie Zelter
return to table of contents

See also

Notes

Citations

Sources

  • "American peace activist killed by army bulldozer in Rafah". Haaretz. 17 March 2003. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  • Bodhi, Bhikkhu (Fall 2018). "A Call to Conscience". Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  • Chandran, Sudha (24 November 2000). "An Angel's Song". The Gulf Today. Sharjah.
  • Colburn, Don (7 June 1988). "No More 'Evil Empire'". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  • "Israeli peace pioneer Abie Nathan dies aged 81". Haaretz. Associated Press. 28 August 2008. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  • Ludel, Wallace (23 February 2021). "Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet, painter, and founder of San Francisco's City Lights bookstore, has died, aged 101". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 3 March 2021. These experiences, particularly witnessing the aftermath of the Nagasaki bombing, turned Ferlinghetti into a lifelong pacifist and anti-war activist.
  • "Peace Summit Award 2008: Bono". World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. 12 December 2008. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  • "Profile: Rachel Corrie". BBC News. 28 August 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  • Tangcay, Jazz (22 January 2020). "'Prosecuting Evil' Director Barry Avrich on the Race to Complete Nuremburg Trial Doc". Variety. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  • Williams, Nadya (February 2021). "Lawrence Ferlinghetti: a veteran for peace". Obituary. Morning Star. Retrieved 3 March 2021. The turning point in Ferlinghetti's life came in late September 1945 as he walked the streets of Nagasaki, Japan, six weeks after an atomic bomb was dropped on the city by his country's government. ... Among the 40,000 Japanese who were incinerated on the day of August 9 was one who was drinking tea at the time. ... Ferlinghetti picked up that person's teacup; it had flesh and bone fused into it. The cup has now sat on the mantelpiece of his home for 75-and-a-half years. ... In all his prodigiously creative works, he never missed the opportunity to chastise the absurdity of materialism, the obscenity of war and the soullessness of profit-driven destruction.

Further reading