Her name is Leymah Gbowee, a 2007 graduate of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Before coming to EMU, Gbowee emerged into the world spotlight when she and a brave group of ordinary women, mostly mothers, banded together to do the unimaginable – use nonviolent methods to confront Liberia’s despotic president Charles Taylor and his warlord opponents.

Both sides used child soldiers who terrorized the population, including raping a large percentage of Liberia’s women and girls. The mothers dressed in white, held up hand-written signs saying “We Want Peace” and began to appear wherever the warring leaders could be found. They also told the men in their families “no sex” until you do everything in your power to stop the war.

At one point the women linked arms and barricaded negotiators for the opposing sides in a conference room. Gbowee threatened to take off her clothes, followed by the other protesting women – an act that, in Liberian culture, would shame and disgrace the men – if the negotiators failed to stay at the table until they arrived at a peace agreement.

The women’s efforts succeeded, and a peace accord was signed in the summer of 2003, leading to UN-supervised disarmament beginning in the winter of 2003-04 and finally to the election of Africa’s first woman president in January 2006.

Leymah Gbowee, a 2007 graduate of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, talks about her peacebuilding and faith journey in university chapel at EMU. (Photo by Jim Bishop) Listen to the chapel podcast…

On behalf of the women she led, Gbowee has received a half dozen major awards, including one from Harvard University. She has been the subject of an article in “O” Magazine, has appeared on “Bill Moyers Journal” and “The Colbert Report” and is the main figure in a documentary, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” ().

Liberia’s bloody civil war

Liberia was founded as a colony in the 1820’s as a place for freed slaves from the US to emigrate to Africa. In 1847, they founded the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled after the United States.

A military-led coup in 1980 overthrew then-president William R. Tolbert, launching a period of instability that eventually led to civil war.

Charles Taylor invaded the country in 1989. During his time in power, some 250,000 people were killed and over a million others displaced in a country of just over three million population.

Thursday evening, Oct. 22, at EMU, Gbowee received a standing ovation as she came to the podium to address about 400 people. The audience had just viewed the film,”Pray the Devil Back to Hell.”

The riveting motion picture is directed by Emmy-winning and Academy Award nominated filmmaker Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008, where it won “Best Documentary Feature.”

A formerly unknown social worker and mother of four, Gbowee organized hundreds of worken to call for peace. She attended EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) in 2004. She returned to SPI in 2006 and went on to earn an MA degree in conflict transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding the following year.

She now heads Women Peace and Security Network Africa (), offering training and counsel to women all over Africa, with special focus on security issues.

Working together to promote peace

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Liberian women’s movement, she told the EMU audience, was “the way that Christians and Muslims overlooked their differences and worked together to promote the need for peace.”

“Before I came to CJP, I was a bit selfish – my entire world view was Liberia or West Africa,” she said. “CJP put names and faces to conflicts in other parts of the world. Now, when I read the news, I am not thinking about statistics, I am anxiously thinking about my [CJP] sisters there.” She said she looks forward to seeing CJP alumni as she travels from country to country, viewing them as family who understand each other in a way that only fellow CJP alumni can.

Gbowee said she also learned at CJP how to make decisions with a strategic focus. “Before, I jumped into projects and ran with different things,” rather than being a “reflective practitioner” of peacebuilding.

Effective peacebuilder, strong faith

Gbowee shared more of her faith journey in university chapel Friday morning, Oct. 23, retracing her steps from that of a homeless, unemployed, despairing person to a leader in her home and neighboring countries, one whom governmental and international leaders call on regularly for counsel.

“I haven’t reached this place where I am today on my own,” she stated. “It is by the grace and mercy of God. I don’t see how it’s possible to be an effective peacebuilder in any setting without a strong faith. That is my message to others – take that first step of faith and ask God to order your steps.”

Asked what sustains her in the midst of stressful, difficult work, Gbowee replied, “I am basically an optimistic person. I believe there are more good people than bad people in this world – it’s just that we, the good people, refuse to step out.”

Ultimately, “I do what I do in the hope that other children won’t have to go through what mine have. I am doing this work for the children.”

Gbowee reflects on her experience in EMU’s CJP program at

Their leader, Leymah Gbowee, who organized the women and succeeded in pressuring those at the negotiating table to come to agreement to end the long, brutal war, will speak and answer questions following the film showing.

The film is directed by Emmy-winning and Academy Award nominated filmmaker Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008, where it won “Best Documentary Feature.” Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu calls the film “inspiring, uplifting and a call to action for all of us.”

The film went on to win several other honors, including the Gabriel Award from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals. The Liberian women in the film from the Mass Action Campaign for Peace have received both a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award and Gruber Women’s Rights Prize this year.

A leader in Liberia, Gbowee organized hundreds of women to protest the civil war. In the midst of her campaign, she attended EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI). She later earned her MA degree in conflict transformation from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, graduating in 2007.

She now heads Women Peace and Security Network in Ghana, offering training and counsel to women all over Africa. She has been featured on national news shows, including “Bill Moyers Journal” and “The Colbert Report.”

The program is sponsored by the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and admission is free. For more information, call 432-4581.

Two experts in Anabaptist studies have collaborated on the first scholarly examination of pacifism during the Civil War.

“Mennonites, Amish and the American Civil War,” by James O. Lehman of Harrisonburg and Steven M. Nolt of Goshen, Ind., describes the various strategies used by the sectarian religious groups in responding to the North-South conflict and the effects of war on these communities.

Lehman is librarian emeritus at EMU, archivist for Virginia Mennonite Conference and the author of nine congregational histories and a book on 20th century Mennonite revivalism.

Steven M. Nolt, professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College and coauthor of two books on Amish faith and life

Nolt is professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College and coauthor of two books on Amish faith and life, both published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bloodiest War in American History

Integrating the most recent Civil War scholarship with little-known primary sources and new information from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Illinois and Iowa, Lehman and Nolt provide a definitive account of the Anabaptist experience during the bloodiest war in American history with 620,000 dead and over a million maimed and wounded.

The authors focus on moral dilemmas Mennonites and Amish faced that that tested the very core of their faith: How to oppose both slavery and the war to end it? How to remain outside the conflict without entering the American mainstream to secure legal conscientious objector status.

The book serves as a good reminder that not all churches immersed themselves in super-charged patriotism for either the Confederacy or the Union.

“The book is an easy read, with lots of arresting stories of faith under test,” said Albert N. Keim, professor emeritus of history at EMU. “Its amazingly thorough research makes the book convincing. After reading it, I was convinced I had just acquired an accurate understanding of my forbears response to the Civil War,” he added.

The 376-page hardback book, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, is available for $39.95 at leading bookstores and at www.amazon.com.

The art is simple, stark, yet powerful. The images depict, and evoke, a flood of emotions growing out of the effects of war on children.

A collection of 123 drawings made by refugee children from El Salvador has been donated to the (CTP) at ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø.

The drawings were done by children, mostly 6 to 12 years of age, in refugee camps on the Honduras-El Salvador border. The refugees fled El Salvador during protracted civil war between government forces and guerilla movements in their native country. The children created the art based on their personal experiences of devastation and trauma.

Ken Lawrence of Spring Mills, Pa., was part of a peace group fact-finding mission to Nicaragua and Honduras in 1984. He was one of four persons from his group able to visit the camps where the art work was discovered.

Lawrence determined to bring back the drawings to show Americans the violence and suffering taking place in Central America, some the direct result of U.S. involvement there.

Photo by Jim Bishop

“It was hard to believe the horrible things that were happening in one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever seen,” Lawrence said. “These are universal images showing the barbarism of war through childrens’ eyes even while being uniquely Central American,” he added.

After returning to the U.S., Lawrence went on tour with the children’s art. He sold an article detailing his experience to “Life” magazine, but it never was published.

The couple, friends of James and Marian Payne of Richmond, Va., long-time benefactors of the CTP program, decided to give the collection to EMU’s graduate-level peacebuilding program because “we felt it had a better chance of more people seeing this striking art work if it went to an organization that is addressing the very ills caused by war and injustice.”

The children who made the drawings would be in their 30’s now, if they’re still living, Lawrence noted, adding: “It would be something if one day these materials could be given back to their creators.”

“These pieces are a striking, painful reminder of how trauma can be reflected in art,” said EMU President Loren E. Swartzendruber. “EMU is grateful to receieve this collection in recognition of the work that CTP does on behalf of hurting people around the world. We will do our best to be good stewards of this gift,” he added.

Ruth H. Zimmerman, CTP co-director, said the artwork will initially be put in acid-free sleeves and placed in notebooks for public viewing. Some “will certainly be displayed as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the CTP program being planned for June, 2005.”