Leymah Gbowee | Academy of Achievement

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A refugee from the First Liberian Civil War, she returned from exile to a country devastated by years of ruthless warfare, characterized by mass rape and the brutal killing of civilians. She took charge of her life and became a social worker, helping others to recover from the trauma of war. When her country was plunged into war for a second time, she rallied the women of Liberia to defy the warmakers and demand peace. She deployed startling, unorthodox tactics to confront the authorities, and forced her country’s dictator to negotiate with his enemies. When peace negotiations faltered, Gbowee and her “women in white” surrounded the peace conference and held the parties hostage until they agreed to make peace. Overcoming despair, heartbreak, and daunting personal challenges, she has become an international spokeswoman and advocate for women and the victims of war and violence. She has told her story in the memoir Mighty Be Our Powers, and the documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. In 2011, her achievement in bringing peace to her country — and her struggle to win equality for her country’s women — brought her the Nobel Prize for Peace."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Leymah Gbowee | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="At age 24, Leymah Gbowee was a single mother of four, with no job and no prospects. A refugee from the First Liberian Civil War, she returned from exile to a country devastated by years of ruthless warfare, characterized by mass rape and the brutal killing of civilians. She took charge of her life and became a social worker, helping others to recover from the trauma of war. When her country was plunged into war for a second time, she rallied the women of Liberia to defy the warmakers and demand peace. She deployed startling, unorthodox tactics to confront the authorities, and forced her country’s dictator to negotiate with his enemies. When peace negotiations faltered, Gbowee and her “women in white” surrounded the peace conference and held the parties hostage until they agreed to make peace. Overcoming despair, heartbreak, and daunting personal challenges, she has become an international spokeswoman and advocate for women and the victims of war and violence. She has told her story in the memoir <em>Mighty Be Our Powers</em>, and the documentary film <em>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em>. In 2011, her achievement in bringing peace to her country — and her struggle to win equality for her country’s women — brought her the Nobel Prize for Peace."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-11-05T16:35:54+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gbowee-Feature-Image-3.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gbowee-Feature-Image-3.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120,"caption":"Paris, France - October 8.Liberian peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize 2011 Leymah Gbowee poses during a portrait session held on October 8, 2012 in Paris, France. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gbowee-Feature-Image-3.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gbowee-Feature-Image-3-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gbowee-Feature-Image-3.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Leymah Gbowee</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize for Peace</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-59036 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-activist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WhatItTakes_gbowee-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I think there is a moment in everyone’s life — we all have it — when you’re pushed so far back against the wall, you have two options: allow that wall to swallow you or fight back.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Power of Women and Faith</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 1, 1972 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Leymah Gbowee was born in central Liberia, in the heart of the first independent republic in Africa. The fourth daughter of the family, Leymah spent her first years in a close-knit rural community, where grandparents and neighbors cared for each other’s children.  When she was a child, she moved with her family to the capital city of Monrovia.  Her father worked for the country’s national security agency, her mother in the pharmacy of the national hospital. A serious student, Leymah Gbowee had just graduated from high school and was preparing to study medicine when her world was turned upside down.</p> <figure id="attachment_59088" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59088" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59088 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59088 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1525" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59088" class="wp-caption-text">August 28, 2003: Liberian women staging a protest march in front of the ECOMIL headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia. Leymah Gbowee was 17 years old when the First Liberian Civil War started in 1989. While the conflict raged, she became a young mother and eventually trained as a social worker and trauma counselor. Gbowee came to believe in women’s responsibility to work proactively to restore peace and became a founding member of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). She organized Christian and Muslim women to mobilize for peace, giving rise to the interfaith movement known as the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Leymah was appointed its spokesperson and led the women in weeks-long public protests that grew to include thousands of committed participants. (Photo credit: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1989, General Charles Taylor led an armed uprising against the government of President Samuel Doe. The First and Second Liberian Civil Wars — two wars separated by a brief ceasefire — would rage for 14 years, tearing the country apart. The day the fighting broke out, Leymah was separated from her parents for several days. The war traumatized her mother and forced the 17-year-old girl to become a caregiver for her mother, her sisters’ children, and nearly 20 friends and extended family members who sought shelter in the Gbowee home.  Sudden death and gruesome atrocities became everyday occurrences. At one stage of the fighting, Leymah and her mother sought refuge in a Lutheran church, when rebel soldiers entered the sanctuary and extracted suspected government officials for summary execution.</p> <figure id="attachment_59090" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59090" style="width: 2003px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59090 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59090 lazyload" alt="" width="2003" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2003px) 100vw, 2003px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981.jpg 2003w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981-254x380.jpg 254w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59090" class="wp-caption-text">April 17, 2008: Leymah Gbowee, subject of the documentary <em>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em>, attends The White House Project’s 2008 EPIC Awards in New York City. In June 2003, Gbowee led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace in public protests that forced Liberia’s President Charles Taylor to meet with them and agree to take part in formal peace talks in Accra, Ghana. Gbowee led a delegation of women to Accra, where they applied strategic pressure to ensure progress was made. At a crucial moment when the talks seemed stalled, Gbowee and nearly 200 Christian and Muslim women formed a human barricade to prevent Taylor’s representatives and the rebel warlords from leaving the meeting hall for food or any other reason until, the women demanded, the men had reached a peace agreement. Within weeks, Taylor resigned the presidency and went into exile. The Second Liberian Civil War ended on August 18, 2003, with the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement. (Mark Von Holden/WireImage)</figcaption></figure> <p>During the years of turmoil, Leymah had two children with her high school boyfriend: a son, Joshua “Nuku,” and a daughter, Amber. Despairing of the possibility of peace in Liberia, the young couple moved to neighboring Ghana. There, her boyfriend was absent as she was expecting a third child. She gave birth to her son Arthur prematurely. Unable to pay her fees, she was forced to sleep on the floor in a corridor of the hospital for a week, clutching the infant tightly to keep him warm enough to survive. She eventually reunited with her boyfriend and struggled to support her growing family. In Ghana, she supported herself by braiding her neighbors’ hair.  When her boyfriend grew violent, she moved to a refugee camp. She decided to return to Liberia with her children, hitchhiking and riding buses on credit because she could not pay her fare. After returning to Liberia, she gave birth to a fourth child, a daughter named Nicole “Pudu,” conceived in the final weeks of her prior relationship.</p> <figure id="attachment_59104" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59104" style="width: 1500px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59104 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59104 lazyload" alt="" width="1500" height="1125" data-sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500.jpg 1500w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59104" class="wp-caption-text">2011: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee is greeted by her family as she arrives from the United States at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Gbowee said it was her goal to seek absolute peace in Africa and the world. Gbowee, who helped found a Ghana-based NGO called Women Peace and Security Network Africa, said that she would use her prize money to provide scholarships for girls in Africa and to help women who are victims of war. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">At 25, Leymah Gbowee was a single mother with four children. By her own </span>account<span style="font-size: 1rem;">, she was “angry, broke and virtually homeless.” Her five-year old-son, Nuku, spoke to her despair in words that she came to regard as the voice of God in her life. She realized that years of abuse and deprivation had taught her to feel helpless over her own life, but she believed that with God’s help she could recover a sense of direction and make a better life for her family.</span></p> <p>As the fighting of the First Liberian Civil War ended in a ceasefire, the country settled into a brief period of peace under the dictatorship of President Charles Taylor.  The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) initiated a program to train social workers to help others recover from the trauma of war. Leymah Gbowee enrolled in the program and spent the next few years counseling women who had been raped by soldiers, and children who had seen their parents murdered.</p> <figure id="attachment_59092" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59092" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59092 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59092 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1428" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231-380x238.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231-760x476.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59092" class="wp-caption-text">2011: Leymah Gbowee and women’s rights activists gather on a dusty soccer field beside Tubman Boulevard, the route Charles Taylor traveled twice a day, to and from Capitol Hill, where they would pray for peace during the civil war. Liberia buzzed with election fever as Nobel Peace Prize Laureates President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and activist Leymah Gbowee took to the streets in a boost for the incumbent’s re-election bid. Music throbbed as chanting and dancing supporters — leaning out of car windows and dressed in party colors — weaved their way through the traffic-clogged streets of the seaside capital, while UN and riot police kept a close watch. (© Issouf Sanogo/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Gbowee joined Africa’s first regional peace organization, the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). While attending WANEP meetings in Ghana, she helped found WIPNET — the Women in Peacebuilding Network — and became coordinator of the network’s Liberian Women’s Initiative program. She adopted a fifth child, a daughter named Lucia “Malou.”</p> <figure id="attachment_59113" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59113" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59113 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59113 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59113" class="wp-caption-text">October 9, 2011: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, walks with fellow 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee in Monrovia. Liberia holds its general elections on October 11, since the end of successive civil wars between 1989 and 2003, and was ruled by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from 2006 until 2018. The women’s peace movement, organized by Gbowee, helped to end the war in 2003 and led to the election of Johnson Sirleaf. After winning the 2011 election, Johnson Sirleaf announced the formation of a national peace and reconciliation initiative, to be headed by Leymah Gbowee. (Photo: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Meanwhile, President Taylor led the country into war with its neighbors and provoked his enemies to resume armed rebellion against his government. Rival armies ravaged the country, and as the warfare depleted the population of young men, the combatants armed little boys, training the child soldiers to kill without remorse.  President Taylor refused to negotiate with his opponents, and it appeared that Liberia would collapse into irretrievable chaos.</p> <figure id="attachment_59106" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59106" style="width: 3672px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59106 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59106 lazyload" alt="" width="3672" height="2448" data-sizes="(max-width: 3672px) 100vw, 3672px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753.jpg 3672w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59106" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2011: View of the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony at City Hall in Oslo, Norway. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to three female political activists, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, who received their prizes in a ceremony at Oslo’s City Hall. (© Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Working days as a trauma counselor and evenings as an unpaid coordinator at WIPNET, Gbowee fell asleep one night in her office and dreamed that God spoke to her, saying, “Gather the women and pray for peace!” Subsequently, she and her allies organized the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace.  Recruiting women in markets, churches and mosques, they united Christian and Muslim women in a single movement, staging massive demonstrations and sit-ins in defiance of the orders of President Charles Taylor.</p> <figure id="attachment_59107" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59107" style="width: 4896px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59107 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59107 lazyload" alt="" width="4896" height="3264" data-sizes="(max-width: 4896px) 100vw, 4896px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733.jpg 4896w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59107" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2011: Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (R), Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee (C), and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman (L) pose with their medals and certificates during the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Johnson Sirleaf, Gbowee, and Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding work.” (Photo credit: CORNELIUS POPPE/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>A highly-publicized “sex strike” drew international media attention to the movement, drawing comparisons to the Ancient Greek comedy <em>Lysistrata</em>, in which the women of Athens withhold sex from their men until they end their war with Sparta. Dressed in matching white T-shirts and white hair ties, the ”Women in White” defied the police and occupied the space along a route where President Taylor had to pass them every day. With more than 2,000 women gathered outside his office, Taylor finally granted them a hearing in 2003.  As the recognized leader of the women’s movement, Gbowee was designated to make their case to President Taylor.</p> <figure id="attachment_59102" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59102" style="width: 1723px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59102 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59102 lazyload" alt="" width="1723" height="2600" data-sizes="(max-width: 1723px) 100vw, 1723px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers.jpg 1723w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers-252x380.jpg 252w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers-504x760.jpg 504w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59102" class="wp-caption-text">2013: In <em>Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, </em>peace activist<em> </em>Leymah Gbowee shares her inspirational story of how a group of women working together created an indomitable force that ended a bitter war and brought peace to Liberia.</figcaption></figure> <p>Taylor eventually agreed to attend regional peace talks — including his opposition — in Accra, Ghana. When the peace talks stalled, Gbowee led a delegation to Accra, demonstrating outside the negotiators’ hotels. Finally occupying the lobby of the hotel where the peace talks were taking place, Gbowee and her comrades barred the delegates from leaving without reaching an agreement. When the authorities tried to force the women out, Gbowee and the other mature women in the movement threatened to undress. In a traditional African context, this gesture would have been seen as an intolerable humiliation for the male delegates. The negotiators returned to the bargaining table and reached an agreement.</p> <p>Fourteen years of fighting came to an end. General Taylor was forced to relinquish power, and Liberia elected Africa’s first woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Charles Taylor was prosecuted and sentenced to virtual life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. The work of rebuilding the nation and healing the wounds of war demanded new skills from a generation of peace activists. Leaving her children in the care of her sisters, Leymah Gbowee traveled to the United States to study peacemaking and conflict resolution. At Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Virginia — the institution a number of her WANEP mentors had attended — she studied the concept of “restorative justice,” whereby healing occurs through the joint efforts of victims and offenders. She sought an end to the “culture of impunity” that had allowed previous African leaders to escape responsibility for the crimes they committed in office.</p> <figure id="attachment_59100" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59100" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59100 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59100 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59100" class="wp-caption-text">September 17, 2013: Leymah Gbowee speaks at the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, an international platform looking at major social and economic issues from women’s perspectives, at Piccolo Teatro, Milan. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2006, while studying for a master’s degree at EMU, she addressed the United  Nations on protecting women from gender-based violence and involving them in UN-linked peace efforts. There, she met philanthropist Abigail Disney, who set out to make a documentary film about Gbowee and her movement. This resulted in the award-winning 2008 film <em>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em>, which Gbowee narrated.</p> <figure id="attachment_59098" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59098" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59098 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59098 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59098" class="wp-caption-text">May 24, 2015: A group of female peace activists, including feminist activist Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Mairead Maguire of Ireland, march with other activists to the Imjingak Pavilion, along the military wire fences near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, to deliver a peace message on International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Throughout the years of war, activism, and the struggle to raise her children while traveling and studying, Gbowee had developed a severe problem with alcohol.  The intervention of her family and friends — and a life-threatening stomach ulcer — persuaded her to give up alcohol for good. Her personal life remained complicated.  In 2009, she gave birth to her sixth child, a daughter she named Jaydyn Thelma Abigail or “Nehcopee.”  None of her relationships with men up to that point had led to marriage. But with the completion of her studies, she was reunited with her children, and her life grew more stable.</p> <figure id="attachment_59096" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59096" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59096 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59096 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1519" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59096" class="wp-caption-text">April 24, 2016: Liberian peace activist and women’s rights advocate Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee; General Secretary of Bonded Labour Liberation Front Syeda Ghulam Fatima; human rights lawyer and Iran’s first female judge, Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi; actor George Clooney; former United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders Hina Jilani; and Maison Shalom founder Marguerite Barankitse attend the laying of the flowers at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia. (Photo: Andreas Rentz and Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Despite her high profile as an international peace activist and advocate for women’s rights, Leymah Gbowee has made efforts to preserve her privacy; in her autobiography, for example, she used pseudonyms when discussing the men in her life.  Today she is married and is happily raising a blended family of eight children.  Her son Joshua has followed in her footsteps, studying at Eastern Mennonite University.</p> <figure id="attachment_59094" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59094" style="width: 1577px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59094 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59094 lazyload" alt="" width="1577" height="1050" data-sizes="(max-width: 1577px) 100vw, 1577px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480.jpg 1577w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59094" class="wp-caption-text">October 5, 2017: Leymah Gbowee (second from right), head of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), stands with group members in front of a sign calling for peaceful elections in Monrovia. Dressed in identical skirts, 100 Liberian women knelt in prayer, after another long day in three weeks of fasting, asking again that Liberia be spared of violence. Ahead of elections on October 10, 2017, women of all ages gathered from dawn to dusk on a roadside near the party headquarters of several presidential candidates, in an echo of protests that helped bring an end to Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars, which spanned from 1989 to 2003. (Zoom Dosso and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Gbowee has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award. In September 2011, she published an autobiography, <em>Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer and Sex Changed a Nation at War</em>. The following month, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, along with the Yemeni journalist Tawakkul Karman and Liberian President Johnson Sirleaf.  Gbowee later broke with President Johnson Sirleaf in protest against the favoritism Johnson Sirleaf showed to her own family members in awarding government posts and contracts.</p> <figure id="attachment_63471" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-63471" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-63471 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-63471 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1824" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-63471" class="wp-caption-text">2019: Singer, songwriter and humanitarian Peter Gabriel, presenting the Golden Plate Award to Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, during the 53rd International Achievement Summit in New York City.</figcaption></figure> <p>Continuing her work to empower women and educate young people, Leymah Gbowee serves as president of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, based in Monrovia, which provides educational and leadership opportunities to girls, women, and youth. She also served as the commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For the 2013–2015 academic years, she was a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College of Columbia University.  She is also executive director of the Women, Peace and Security Program at Columbia.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2019 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.activist">Activist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 1, 1972 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>At age 24, Leymah Gbowee was a single mother of four, with no job and no prospects. A refugee from the First Liberian Civil War, she returned from exile to a country devastated by years of ruthless warfare, characterized by mass rape and the brutal killing of civilians.</p> <p>She took charge of her life and became a social worker, helping others to recover from the trauma of war. When her country was plunged into war for a second time, she rallied the women of Liberia to defy the warmakers and demand peace. She deployed startling, unorthodox tactics to confront the authorities, and forced her country’s dictator to negotiate with his enemies. When peace negotiations faltered, Gbowee and her “women in white” surrounded the peace conference and held the parties hostage until they agreed to make peace.</p> <p>Overcoming despair, heartbreak, and daunting personal challenges, she has become an international spokeswoman and advocate for women and the victims of war and violence. She has told her story in the memoir <em>Mighty Be Our Powers</em>, and the documentary film <em>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em>. In 2011, her achievement in bringing peace to her country — and her struggle to win equality for her country’s women — brought her the Nobel Prize for Peace.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/JFMS4cQINOI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_12_51_12.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_12_51_12.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Power of Women and Faith</h2> <div class="sans-2">New York City</div> <div class="sans-2">September 13, 2018</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You’ve said that your childhood was a time of relative security, but that changed when the First Liberian Civil War began in 1989. What was your life like at that time?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/MVjHd2lerpw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_58_57_17.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_58_57_17.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: At 17, I was fresh out of high school. I had the world ahead of me. I was going to college to be a pediatrician. I was going to marry my dream boyfriend and have two children, with a white picket fence, live my dream life. My dad was working with the government, the National Security Agency. Things like that were quite good for us, so we were now a middle-class family. My mom worked at the national hospital as one of the senior dispensers in the pharmacy. And Monrovia children, I would say, at my age, we weren’t really involved in the politics of our time. We were involved in our own politics. So life was booming for us. And then, like I said, we had moved from a community where we didn’t know poverty, we didn’t know hardship. Growing up, my dad had the only television in that neighborhood. Every child came to watch television in our house. But by the time we moved outside — in the more suburban area — and we came to that community, then we realized that we were living in a bubble. Not a rich bubble, but a comfortable, closely-knitted bubble.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_59126" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59126" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59126 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59126 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1524" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59126" class="wp-caption-text">August 8, 1990: Refugees flee their homes as forces from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) head to Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. The First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996) was one of Africa’s bloodiest civil conflicts in the post-independence era, claiming more than 200,000 Liberian lives in a nation of 2.1 million people and displacing a million other citizens in refugee camps in neighboring countries. On December 24, 1989, a band of Libyan-trained rebels, led by Charles Taylor, invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast. The NPFL, Taylor’s rebel group, consisted mostly of people from the ethnic Gio and Mano tribes of Nimba County, Liberia, who had long been opposed and persecuted by Liberian President Samuel Doe and his Krahn ethnic group. (© Patrick Robert/Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What were you doing when the war started?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It started two days after my high school graduation. That was when the war started at the border.</p> <p><strong>How did your life change when civil war broke out? Can you tell us about that day?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/dMgEzGS93Js?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.01_00_48_09.Still017-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.01_00_48_09.Still017-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: My mom left to go to work. My dad did not come home the night before. So I was the only one at home when the shooting erupted in that part of — where we moved at the time. I tell the story that, in one minute, I was a teenager; in the next minute, I was an adult, taking care of over 20 people who had come. They were internally displaced. I was the only child of my parents old enough, living in the house at the time. So my aunties and those around said I had to take the responsibility of taking care. So you move from that child who was pampered and dependent on everyone into deciding who sleeps where, what documents to find to keep if you had to run, making decisions about if someone died, where you all would bury them.</p> <p>So one minute, we’re sitting there, and then, all of a sudden, shooting erupted. I have to collect my sister’s kids, my two younger siblings, and then I became a head of a household. And it never went back to normal until today. Because then, by the time my mother came, she was so traumatized that she couldn’t do anything. So I had to function for her. I had to think, “Let’s go this place. Let’s come this place. Let’s do this.” So people would come in, and they’d say, “We need this,” and she would say, “Talk to Leymah.” And I would be like, “I’ve been waiting for a week for you to come home and take over your life.” But eventually, I would realize that that would not be the case, even up until we went to refugee camp.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_59129" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59129" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59129 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59129 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1507" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988-380x251.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988-760x502.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59129" class="wp-caption-text">August 1990: The rebels loyal to the warlord Charles Taylor, holding Kalashnikov machine guns, pass by bodies of soldiers loyal to President Samuel Doe, in Monrovia. Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which included former Liberian military men and civilians, was one of the first to recruit children as soldiers. The NPFL clashed with government forces and other ethnic militias supporting President Doe between December 1989 and mid-1993. During that period, all groups involved in the fighting generated civilian causalities, but Taylor’s NPFL was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Liberians, both military and civilians, who opposed him. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How bad did it get? Over a quarter of a million people — in a relatively small country — died in that war. What was your experience of the war?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, my God. I never saw a dead person until I was 17. That’s how protected and sheltered we were. During that time, when we were growing up, if someone died in the next house or in your house, they would collect all of the children and put them in another house and take charcoal and put it on your forehead. The charcoal is trying to shield the eyes of the children from the spirit of the dead person. So that blackness was the black field.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/g-tneFuvvpE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_57_09_23.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_57_09_23.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The first time I saw a dead person was when we were walking in late July of 1990. This woman had been shot, apparently, but she was still clinging onto her Bible, and the dogs were eating her body. I froze. That was the first time in my entire life I had seen a dead person. It got so bad that by the time the war ended — I was in my 30s — I could eat with a dead person around me. So you move from being afraid to not being afraid — from being afraid of the shooting to moving around and trying to fend for food in the midst of the shooting. When the war started, yes, they were killing people, shooting people, but as it dragged on, the fighters and those who had the guns began to think about very creative ways of killing people. Stories I told of women who were walking, coming to a checkpoint and were pregnant, and the soldiers would put a bet on them: “She’s carrying a boy.” “No, she’s carrying a girl.” And they would open up the stomach to know the sex of the child. So these are things — it was really, really bad. And we’ve been — what? — 14, 15 years since the end of the war, but I think it’s going to take us decades to get our humanity back, to get the infrastructure developed, to get us to that place where we can look at each other again and not be suspicious that this person is a potential killer.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_59131" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59131" style="width: 2122px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59131 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59131 lazyload" alt="" width="2122" height="1462" data-sizes="(max-width: 2122px) 100vw, 2122px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904.jpg 2122w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904-380x262.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904-760x524.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59131" class="wp-caption-text">August 28, 2003: Liberian women stage a protest march in front of the ECOMIL headquarters in Monrovia. Leymah Gbowee called together women from different ethnic and religious groups in the fight for peace when bloody civil wars ravaged Liberia. Dressed in white T-shirts, they held daily demonstrations in Monrovia. (© Pius Utomi Ekpei)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did you shield yourself from the brutality? How do you keep functioning when they’re doing things like slitting open a pregnant woman’s stomach or shooting people at church?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KfARa8a0iRM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_57_50_13.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_57_50_13.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I was very angry. I was a very, very angry young woman. I grew up in a home that, I tell people — my grandmother, she’s 111 and is still alive today — the way we woke up in the morning, my sister Josephine and I, because we were the ones who were sleeping in her bedroom — she would wake up and kneel down at the foot of her bed. Until this day, I remember her prayers. She started with “All powerful, almighty God,” and then she thanked Him for her children and her grandchildren. And she went on down that line. So we grew up with a strong sense of God, a strong sense of a prayer-answering God.</p> <p>When the war started in December, we prayed — January, February, March, April, May, June, July. By July, when we have come close to a near-death experience, I didn’t want to hear the word “God” anymore. It was just that anger that was taking me. I was just very angry up until the point we left Liberia and went into exile in Ghana. So I really don’t think I shielded myself. I think just playing the role as the protector of my mother and my nephew and nieces, or the one who would wake up in the morning and would say, “Oh, you need to walk two hours from here to go and find food for us” — I was just existing, I think. So it wasn’t about trying to protect myself from anything or trying to shield myself from anything. I had a role to play, and I think my person disconnected from that girl who was out in the streets.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was your role to play?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/seGq0HVsDGQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_43_21.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_43_21.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: My role to play was to go pass through checkpoints. I remember, one time, they gave me a huge cache of cash to take to my grandmother because they were on the other side and there was no food. And I had to put the cash in my underwear, wear it like a sanitary pad. Because if I had gone through a checkpoint and they found that kind of money on me, I could get killed. But even walking alone as a young woman with that kind of money through a checkpoint was a risk, but it was nothing. I never thought about it. It was just that my family needed me. My mother couldn’t do it. It was my role.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_59133" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59133" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59133 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59133 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1475" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651-380x246.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651-760x492.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59133" class="wp-caption-text">October 9, 2011: Leymah Gbowee is welcomed by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Monrovia. Liberia buzzed with election fever as the Nobel Laureates took to the streets in a boost for the incumbent’s re-election bid. The music throbbed as chanting and dancing supporters — leaning out of car windows and dressed in party colors — weaved their way through the traffic-clogged streets of Monrovia, while police kept a close watch. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Did you make it through that checkpoint?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I did. I took the money. Many other days, I would cross over to different places to get food, either going to get vegetables for us to eat or going to check on these other family members. Just going to different places — I still have those images today — but I think it’s just taking myself out of it, as this girl who needs to do this for her family.</p> <p><strong>What was the closest you came to getting killed yourself?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/n8w5Q47SR5Y?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_51_34_18.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_51_34_18.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I would name four incidents, apart from the moments where you have rockets and missiles flying over the building at night, which was like a common occurrence. The first one was in mid-July of 1990. We went to look for food, and we had queued, my cousin and I, to this store. We were about to enter the store. You had to have a trained eye. There was this soldier standing. There was something different about him. His uniform was brand-new, whereas all of the other soldiers around had old uniforms. So immediately, something clicked, and I kept my eyes on him. He kept shaking his head — “no, no” — like “Don’t go in there.” He kept going “no.” So as we were going closer — because the store was — people were going in to get food. As we were going closer to the doorway, he’s shaking his head “no.” And like, maybe five people from me, sporadic shooting broke out. So my cousin and I started running in the opposite direction. And we got into this house with many people. We didn’t know the people. People would just open their doors and everyone would run in. We’re all on the floor. And the shooting lasted for maybe three, four hours. But later on, we learned that everyone who had entered that store did not make it out. That was the first time.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0fglubxF7PI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_15_07_15.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_15_07_15.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The second time was when they had the massacre at the Lutheran Church in July. The day before the massacre, they came to the guesthouse, and they lined all of us on the wall and took several people from the line and executed them. They picked people who were known government officials. But I remember, as a 17-year-old girl, having on shorts and being very afraid that the soldiers would rape me. So I took my nephew and put him on my lap after they told us to sit down. But while they had the older people on the wall, my mother motioned to me. So I kept moving in the crowd until I finally got to her. And she whispered to me, “I have a lot of money tied around my waist. If they kill me, ask for my body.” So that was her thing. But fortunately for us, after they carried one, two, three persons, this guy who used to be married to my aunt came in, and he was an ethnic member of the soldiers. He spoke his tribe and said that his in-law and her children were there. And my mother was trying — when they said, “Show your relatives” — she was pointing to many people, and we all left together. That was the second time.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_59135" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59135" style="width: 4896px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-59135 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-59135 lazyload" alt="" width="4896" height="3264" data-sizes="(max-width: 4896px) 100vw, 4896px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692.jpg 4896w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-59135" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2011: The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee poses with her medal and certificate during the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo. (Cornelius Poppe and Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was the key moment for you, when you realized the power of women to stop war?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think the key moment for me came slowly.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/2rsIr0Dmf-8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_43_21.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_43_21.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>We went to Parliament to protest, in the early days of our movement. And the Speaker of Parliament came. He was very angry. He wanted to know who the leader of the group was. I stood up, and I said, “I’m the leader.” And he said to me, “Why are you using those women?” I don’t know where the courage came from. I was so mad. I told him the truth, and he got so mad. But for a second, people thought we were going to fight physically because I was in his face. Unfortunately for him, he was this short, so I could talk over his head. The next day, he came to where we were sitting, where we used to protest, and he sat in his car and sent his bodyguard to say that he needed to talk to me. And the bodyguard came and said, “The Speaker wants to talk to you.” I said, “Well, tell the Speaker I’m in my office. Let him get down and walk to me.” When I saw him, it was actually — I was, yeah, trying to be brave — he opened the door, walked to me and said, “I need to talk to you.” I stood up. We walked, and he said, “This is to tell you that President Taylor will meet with you all.” That was the second thing. It was like “Wow!”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>And then we get to go to meet President Taylor — 2,500 women. He had instructed his bodyguards that if we were less than 20, they shouldn’t allow us in.</p> <p><strong>Your group was very visible. You were all wearing white shirts. Where were you?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/hiyz032OMT4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_55_50_25.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_55_50_25.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Half of the group was standing at the university, which is across the street from the Executive Mansion. So when we said, “So what if we’re more than 20?” the guy laughed and said, “Yeah, then come.” So I called on my cell phone and told the women to line up, and you just see this sea of white coming down. So we get in, and the security comes to me and said, “The president says you are too many. You should find ten people to come upstairs to his office to talk to him.” I said, “Show me the way to the president’s office.” He said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going to tell him no.” So I walked past this guy, and I’m going in, two or three other people following me. And by the time we go up the stairs, and we’re going up together in the elevator, the guards are running after me and saying, “This is a problem! This is problematic! Why are you so troublesome? Come back, come back, come back.” I said, “No. We came to see him, and all of us will see him. So either he comes down to see us or there’s no meeting.” And then, right midway, I think he’s watching us on camera. “Circle back. He’s coming down to meet you all.” At that moment, I was like, “Okay. We got it!”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_63846" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-63846" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-63846 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-63846 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235248im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-63846" class="wp-caption-text">2019: Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, addressing delegates and members at a symposium at the Four Seasons Hotel during the 53rd annual International Achievement Summit in New York City.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>That moment when President Charles Taylor came down and talked to you and listened to you and the women in white, what was that conversation like?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/hv3Og4jbB4Y?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_28_05.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_44_28_05.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: They had given me a statement to read. And because I was already mad that he was telling us he would meet with ten people, even though he was coming down — so I was telling my mentor, Etweda Cooper, that. She goes, “This statement is too sanitized for me to read to this guy.” She was like, “Do whatever you have to do.” So he came outside, and he offered us seats — those of us who they had invited up to his platform — and we rejected his seats, so we sat on the floor because the women down were all sitting on the floor. And then they called me up, and that was when I decided, “No, it has to be about the experiences of these women.” What I was hearing every day from those women who were coming to protest was that “We’re exhausted. We’re tired of being raped. We’re tired of begging for food. We’re tired of running from our homes. We’re tired of seeing our young children being conscripted.” So I just tried to rephrase everything that those women had been saying to us. And we’re saying, “Right now, we’re not backing down until you go to the peace table and give us the peace that we need.” So there was a lot of anger. There was no fear. There was a lot of anger. There was no fear. But it was that moment that I had to speak the truth for the women. There was a lot of anger.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Where did you get that courage?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235248if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/10rMCeHO5H4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_15_19_22.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gbowee-Leymah-2018-MasterEdit.00_15_19_22.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think there is a moment in everyone’s life — we all have it — when you’re pushed so far back against the wall, you have two options: allow that wall to swallow you or fight back. And when you’re fighting back — even if it is a child — that is when the Liberians will say, “You don’t give a damn. You’re just fighting back!” And that is where I was because I was living the war with those women on a daily basis, whether it was the ones that had been raped repeatedly — one of the leaders of that group, who came every day from the internally displaced camp, had so much energy and was giving people so much “whoop!”</p> <p>One day, she sat down with me to tell her story: that the soldiers had come to arrest someone, and she went and stood up for this person. And those soldiers decided to strip her naked in a camp of 20,000 people and ask her to walk naked in the streets of that camp and pick up paper. And as she was picking up paper, they were inserting their AK47s in her private parts. That incident happened, and afterwards, they took her — five men raped her, but she came back the next day to protest for peace. And she’s telling me this story and saying, “I will not stop until this stops.”</p> <p>So every moment — I was standing either in front of a warlord or in front of Taylor’s people — it wasn’t about me. It was never, until this day — even up until now, the work that I do, it is not about me. It is about those people that I represent or those women in other parts of the world, even as we’re speaking now, who are going through similar things.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Let’s go back to the beginning. Tell us about growing up. You weren’t rich, we understand. </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, growing up, I would say we weren’t rich materially, but we were rich with love and affection and, most especially, community. But when you live in that moment, you don’t see it. It’s now, looking back, that I see it when I try to place value. First, my dad was older than my mom, at least ten or more years, because they can’t really place his age. But they met when she was 15 and he was in his 20s. By the time she was 17, she had her first daughter, and my sister had polio, so they had to go and live with our grandmother because my dad was dirt poor, as they would say. Then they had their second child, less than a year later, another girl; then the third, another girl; then the fourth. But by the time they had their second child, we were told that our grandmother invited them to come and live with her because she was buying diapers and milk for the two babies. So it was like, “Let me just have you two here.” And then they had two more kids.</p> <p>So we grew up with our grandmother and our mother and father in the same house. But basically, she was our primary caregiver. And then, after me — or before me — my mom found a job working in a pharmacy as a dispenser. And then my grandmother had a friend who had some land next to her house, who told my mom, “You could pay in installment for this land, but you should build a house for yourself.” So my dad used to oversee the building of the house because he did not have a job. Once I was born, he got a job. So technically, I was his lucky charm.</p> <p><strong>Where were you in the family birth order?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I’m number four. So he had three kids, no job, and then his fourth daughter comes along, and then he lands himself a job. So I became his lucky child. And then, a year after I was born, they officially got married and moved into their own house. There’s three bedrooms, one bathroom, he built just next to our grandmother’s house. So technically, we were living in their house, but we’re still being brought up.</p> <p><strong>Was there anything about the way you grew up, or the strength of your mother or grandmother, that inspired you in the women’s movement you founded?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: The community. When we lived in that community, it was a poor community. It wasn’t a rich community, but we didn’t know poverty because every child took their bath. So if I went to the next-door house and it was 6:00 p.m., the neighbor gave me a bath and put an oversized T-shirt on me and sent me home.</p> <p>If we came from school and they had not finished making our meal, someone would offer us a meal. The way we lived was our back porch was someone’s front porch. And someone’s front porch was our keychain, like a very clustered community. It was not until my father — in the early ‘90s — built a house that he called his dream house, when we moved out of that community, that we knew that people were hungry. When two kids appeared on our doorstep one day and said they had not had breakfast. My sister and I, 17 and 19, looked at each other and were like, “You two, three-year-old and five-year-old, have not eaten?” Because they came with an empty bowl to our house to say, “We’re hungry. Can you give us food?” But all of our growing-up years, that was the first time we had seen that.</p> <p>So when I started the movement, I would say that, even though we moved out of that community, but that socialization was solid, the foundation of — the South Africans would say <em>ubuntu</em>, “I am because of what we all are” — was solid in me. So it’s that mindset that I took into the women’s movement.</p> <p><strong>Your great gift is the voice that has made you a leader. You’ve said that sometimes you lose it and get it back. When you’ve lost it, how do you get it back?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think I’ve lost my voice twice. Once was during the war, being angry, meeting my kids’ father, the first man in my life. I had four children by him, but I was in an abusive relationship.</p> <p><strong>Physically abusive?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Physically, psychologically, emotionally. All of it is in my book. Then I found my voice, and I told myself, “I’m never letting it go. Because this is me.”</p> <p><strong>So while you were in a bad relationship, do you think you lost your way a bit?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I just lost my way. Not a bit, a huge lot. I lost my way. I couldn’t seem to get it together.</p> <p><strong>What helped you get it together after that?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think it was my kids. I had those two children. The third one was on the way, and I realized that — so I gave birth to my third child. He was seven months — a preemie — and he was never placed in an incubator. By the time I gave birth, they took me out of the maternity ward and put me on the floor in the hospital. So I slept on the floor in the hallway for a week because I didn’t have money. And this baby that was two pounds, I used to put in a gown like this. I didn’t know that that was the natural incubator. I was just trying to keep him warm.</p> <p><strong>You were lying in the hallway in a hospital. No money. Abusive relationship.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: The father of the child had gone, and we didn’t see him for several days. But people would pass and hand me bread. Some people would hand me coins. There was this one woman who came out of her private room in a hospital — someone had said, “Oh, there’s this beautiful young girl” because — even though I was, what, in ’96? — I was 24 at the time, but I looked like I was 16 because I was less than 100 pounds. So she came and took the baby and I into her hospital room. And once she offered me food and water to bathe, and I was just crying and crying and crying.</p> <p>I think she must have listened to me cry for, like, 30 minutes, and out of nowhere, she just screamed, “Shut up!” And she said to me, “You need to stop crying. You need to be strong for these children. You may never have money to send them to school, but you finished high school, right?” And I said, “Yes.” “So you have to start teaching them. You have to. You have to. You have to.” Eventually, my doctor — who used to be my biggest supporter — came back from burying his mother, heard I had given birth, paid my hospital bill, and that’s how I was able to leave the hospital. And when I got home with that baby, I knew how to braid hair, so I started braiding hair in the community, and people would pay me. So that’s how I started.</p> <p>My sister-in-law, she was very nice. She worked at a school, and they gave her two slots. And she took the two first older children. My daughter —now, who’s in med school — was three, and she was about to start pre-k. And my son was four. So she put them on the scholarship at the school. So I used to stay home, braid hair in the community for people, and they paid me. And that’s how I gradually decided I would be the protector of these children.</p> <p>And then I set a, like, a line. I’m trying to look for the word — that I would take this and no further. And one of the things that I set was that I would take all of the physical abuse in the privacy of our bedroom, but if my husband — I mean if my “children’s father” because I wasn’t married to him — if my children’s father ever insulted me in public, that was it. And the day he did it, in my heart, it was over. So we started sleeping — his head, my leg; my head, his leg. Eventually, I told him I was moving, and then I went to the refugee camp. I hitchhiked my way back — we’re in Ghana — to Liberia. Before I could get to Liberia, I found out I was three months pregnant, also. So that was my fourth, who’s now at USC.</p> <p>That’s been a long journey. I often get questions about, “Do you have any regrets?” I said, “No.” Because if I regret my life, then I have to regret my kids, and my kids — they are everything to me. I have no regret. And if I regret my life, then I’ll be regretting the path that God put me on because I see all of it as part of the journey that led me to where I find myself today. You can’t keep regretting all the things that you’ve either done deliberately or you had no control over. All you have to do is, “All of these mistakes that I’ve made, how do I take it now and maximize it to my benefit and to the benefit of the world?”</p> <p>So I’m able to talk about my story of the abuse. I’m able to talk about all of these things, but in the midst of all of that story of abuse, I always say to women, “Always set that boundary.” That’s the word I was looking for. Always set that boundary and say, “I’m not taking this if this person crosses this line.” So women always need boundaries.</p> <p><strong>You seem so together and so grounded, so secure in your faith. Have you made mistakes in life?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, my God, yes, a lot of them! Some days when I tell stories about my youth — for years, even now — my kids will be like, “Gosh!” But yes, I mean alcoholism was one. I used to be a party girl. At one point in time, I can’t say my sex life was the best because I had — there is this woman who used to work with the UN, a good friend of mine. She said her mother read my book and said — this old, damaged woman said, “Beautiful story, beautiful story, but too many men!” So, yes!</p> <p><strong>So, too many men, too many drinks?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: But one of the things that — when I sat down to write that book, it was just when I was about to have my fifth child — the only thing I wanted out of everything was to be brutally honest in that book. I didn’t know I would win the Nobel Peace Prize, but I had become a leader in my own right, in my community and in Africa. And I wanted the African girls to see that.</p> <p><strong>You just mentioned you were drinking a lot at that period.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, my God, I was drinking a lot.</p> <p><strong>How did you fight back against alcoholism?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: You know, my current husband came into my life and was quietly trying to tweak things. He’s still trying, but he can’t get some out. I think the turning point was when my daughter turned 17, and I drank 17 glasses of wine straight. He was sitting there, looking at me. At that time, we had just started dating, and he was just looking at me. And the next day, he said to me, “You need to slow down.” But that was my escape from everything I had gone through from the movement — because even as we did the movement, there were traumas that were piling up. And then my sister died in 2006. Then I came to grad school, left my kids back. And it was after grad school that I met him, and we talked about it. One of the days, I drove from work, and I had this very terrible pain between here and here. It was one of those nights where I had a lot of gin and tonic. And the next day, I went to work and driving back, the pain was bad. So I stopped the car, went to the drugstore, bought pain medication, got in the car, closed the door — the engine was still running, and that was the last thing I remembered.</p> <p><strong>What was the next thing?</strong></p> <p>It was the banging on the window. I opened my eyes and there were all these people surrounding the car.</p> <p><strong>You had just passed out?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I passed out from the pain. And I wind the glass down and said, “I’m okay. I’m okay.” And I drove home, walked past my kids — they were sitting on the floor studying — went into my room. My niece used to live with me. I said to her, “Bring a bucket. I want to throw up.” She brought the bucket. And afterwards, I remember praying, “God, if you heal me, I promise you, I’m done with alcohol.” I think I passed out again. And then, when I opened my eyes, she was sitting on the bed and said, “I was about to call people because you weren’t moving and nothing.” So I said to her, “I’m not going to drink anymore.” She said, “You sure?” I said, “Yes.”</p> <p><strong>Did you ever have a drink after that? </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No. Last time my daughter turned five, my husband brought champagne, and then he poured it, and I was like this. The kids were like, “Wow, Leymah, who used to be the queen of alcohol, can no longer taste even a teaspoon of champagne. Oh, my God!” My kids, they do that to me. I’m not important in their eyes.</p> <p><strong>How many kids do you have?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Eight wonderful children. I find myself extremely blessed to have this group of young people, who know exactly where they’re going, but they take so much care of me, and they’re so concerned about me. If I’m having a bad day, they talk to me, but they also keep me grounded in my calling.</p> <p><strong>You ended up going to school at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. That’s a long way from Liberia!</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It was a long way from Liberia, but it was the perfect space to globalize my very local peacebuilding work. I got in that space, not as a Fulbright Scholar — I would joke that I was the Empty Bright Scholar because I didn’t have any support. I was self-supported at school. My roommate — I’m actually wearing a scarf that — she usually would send me stuff from Kenya. [Dekha] Abdi, who was a Kenyan Somali woman, was my first roommate. And then I would meet people from Afghanistan and from Iraq and from Israel and Palestine. They did the program at Eastern Mennonite University. It’s such a diverse program, with people from everywhere. And I got in there, fresh from doing the work that I had done in Liberia. One boy from Indonesia would name me the Mother of Peace, and that would be my nickname among my peers for a while.</p> <p><strong>It sounds like the other students from all over the world were as much of an influence as the Mennonites.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: The students, particularly, hearing their stories — some of them just getting into their work, some of them having completed that work a long time ago. My friend [Dekha] from Kenya was part of the Wajir Women for Peace initiative, a movement that had started in Kenya — women who began the peace process in the border town in Kenya. So she already had done that. So I was at this place, and I was like, “Wow, different colors, different cultures, but same kind of crazy.”</p> <p><strong>You’ve spoken about a very important dream you had that fed into this feeling that you had a calling. Can you tell us about the dream?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, the dream came when I was lying in my room on the floor. My kids had moved to Ghana as refugees. I was lonely because my whole world was built around those children. So I poured myself into my work. And this night, out of nowhere, I had this dream where the voice was telling me, “Gather the women to pray for peace.” So I went to work and went to my boss and said to him, “You know, I had this strange dream, and since you are a pastor” — my boss at the time was a pastor — “I think you should tell the women of the church to come together to pray for peace.” And he looked at me and said, “No, Leymah. The dream bearer is always the dream carrier. If you give your dream to someone, you may never recognize it when you see it the next time. So <em>you</em> have to mobilize those women.” And I was like, “Ahh! But God could not be talking to me because I drink. I’m in a relationship where I’m not married.” So everything that the Bible tells you is wrong is what I was reciting to him. And he said, “Yeah, I know that, but He called <em>you</em>.”</p> <p><strong>You’re well known around the world for a certain strategy that you used to try to stop the fighting — the “sex strike.” Where did that idea come from?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, I can’t take credit for the idea, but I always say to people, “There is always a myth or a misconception about the different religious groups in our world. And that sex strike idea came from a Muslim woman – Asatu Bah Kenneth. Today she’s the deputy of immigration in Liberia, a career police officer. She was like, ‘We should have a sex strike.’”</p> <p><strong>Was she talking to you?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yes. When we were in our small meeting, she said, “We should have a sex strike.”</p> <p><strong>And what did you say?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Sure. I didn’t have a lot to worry about because I wasn’t married at the time.</p> <p><strong>How old were you?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: In 2002? I was 30.</p> <p><strong>How did you enforce that? Do you want to explain what this method was?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: The sex strike was basically to get the men mobilized to speak to their buddies who had the guns. The idea was, if the women were not paying attention to their husbands, the husbands would talk to their buddies, or they would get involved in some kind of advocacy. Little did we know that the whole idea of a sex strike was the best media strategy because, at the time, we were being ignored. If you look at the state of our world, media is anything sexy, anything you sell. So once we said “sex strike,” everyone was at our door the next morning, wanting to know how a group of African women were going to accomplish a sex strike. So while we talked about it, we also added the story of the essence of our protest.</p> <p>The women in our movement go around — nine counties were being told, “You can’t have sex with your husband.” So you had to put it that you’re praying, you’re fasting, whatever way you can put it. But until we have peace, we have to do a sex strike. It was more successful in the rural areas than the urban areas because the women were — in one particular area, the women took their husbands into the mosques, into the church, and made them vow to God that they would not bother them for sex until peace came.</p> <p><strong>So it really worked in some places.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It worked in some places but other places it did not work, not in the city. It lasted probably for two weeks in the city. So we had to re-strategize, do different things.</p> <p><strong>At another point, when the peace talks stalled, you used a very novel tactic to get men to do what you wanted. You threatened to take all your clothes off. Did it work?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It did. In our culture — in many other African cultures, including mine — it’s a curse for a woman to undress because she’s dissatisfied with something. So when we were arrested in Ghana for blocking the peace hall, I told myself that this was a total contradiction of the spirit of <em>ubuntu</em> that I talked about: “I am because of what we all are.” I have been socialized to believe that the weak will be taken care of by the strong and all of those things that I talked about growing up. When I was being told I was being arrested for obstructing justice, everything that I ever believed in crumbled before my eyes. To protest the destruction of my socialization, my childhood, my belief system, I was prepared to strip naked. When I said I was going to do so, the soldiers — the police — let me go. They ran away, and the guys in the room — one of the warlords, who later would tell the producers of the film <em>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</em> that there was not a single man in that room that did not question what he did to contribute to bringing the women to that place, where they were willing to disgrace themselves in protest.</p> <p>There’s one thing. So I always get this question, what stripping naked would have done for a nation where women have been raped — where 65 percent of the population have been raped? There’s a huge difference in being forced — your clothes being torn off — than willingly taking off your clothes in protest. That’s a huge difference.</p> <p><strong>Did you say 65 percent of the women in Liberia have been raped?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: That’s the stats, yeah, or sexually assaulted.</p> <p><strong>Did you say, “I’m going to do this,” and they knew you were going to do it?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yes, I already started. The headgear was gone. The skirt was being loosened. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Do you think you would have gotten other women to do it, too?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, they already started next to me.</p> <p><strong>And then what? Did they just say, “Go ahead”?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No, they backed off. The media came out. We were crying, I was upset, and they took us into a room to negotiate with us. But that particular moment would be the turning point of the Liberian peace talks.</p> <p><strong>It was the turning point because you stood up.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yes.</p> <p><strong>You didn’t get arrested.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No.</p> <p><strong>And you retained the power.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: We locked the delegates in. We had sent a hostage note to say they were not going to come out for food and water or to use the bathroom unless they sign an agreement. It was at that point that the security said they were going to arrest me.</p> <p><strong>And then you said, “Then I’ll take my clothes off.”</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Do you have other tactics up your sleeve? </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Sometimes you don’t overthink too much. A girl has to do what she’s got to do for peace, for justice, for human rights. Sometimes the movements will come. My friends in the movement say they know when I’m about to make trouble. There’s a way my body would just become tense and they know that. “Grab her, grab her, grab her — she’s going to cause trouble here.”</p> <p><strong>In your memoirs, you mentioned several people that were big influences on you. Can you tell us about one person that helped you to become a courageous leader?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I would say one person, but I want to say those women that I’ve worked with across nations, across communities. Gosh, the level of strength! And I like to tell stories, so one of my other trips to Congo, I was sitting in a room with 100 women, victims of violence. They were all around the table. And each person sitting around the table is telling their story, a story of rape and abuse and hardship. Each person tells the story, and they end with how they wanted to take their own life — “and then the women came.”</p> <p>So I’m writing in my journal, and before long, I realized that there was this consistent thread in all of the stories: “Then the women came.” So, stop. Who women? These same women — so each of those women who had been raped would reach out to one new rape victim, give her hope that life can be better, take her through medical care, and then help her to establish.</p> <p><strong>“And then the women came.”</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: So first, “I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. Then the women came. They took me to the doctor. They gave me food. They took care of my children, and I have hope.” Then the women came. Hope. Wanted to die. Then the women came. Hope. That was the consistent thread in all of those 100 testimonies.</p> <p><strong>Speaking about trauma, you’ve done a lot of work in trying to heal people in trauma. What’s the key to that?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, I think, when it comes to the healing process, the one recognition that people must have is that trauma is like a physical wound. While the wound will heal, you always have the scars. So we all still go around with the scars of the war. You may heal that — like, if I have a cut, the cut may heal, but people will always know that. So that’s what we carry in our hearts, in our minds, and in our souls — that we have these wounds, the scars from these wounds that may never, ever go away.</p> <p><strong>Is there something to do to minimize the scars?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No, you can’t do anything to minimize the scars. What you do is to try to work your way through healing of the pain because some people’s wounds are still very fresh. The way we were able — I was able — to do mine, was to be able to talk about it in different circles and spaces at different times. In different moments, just to talk about it. And today, I can talk about my experiences of the war without wanting to revenge. So that is how I know that I’m healed, but I still carry the scar.</p> <p><strong>You’ve said that it’s probably good to be angry but poisonous to have hate.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I see anger in my life as the fuel to move me into action. But hate, it immobilizes you. It takes away creativity. If someone asks, “What’s the difference between anger and hate?” — everyone is angry. Dr. King was an angry man. Gandhi was an angry man. Mother Teresa was an angry woman. The difference — the thing that distinguishes a great angry person from a villain — is that those who are angry, when you’re able to tap into that anger, use it for good. Hitler was an angry man, but his anger turned to hate, and he was able to unleash that.</p> <p>So when you’re talking about great men and women of our time or times before us, the one thing that they have in common is that they were all angry. But there was a group of them who decided, “I’m going to transform my anger into something great.” And there is another group that decided, “I will let this turn into hate, and that gangrene in my heart will let me do unto those the same thing that I am upset about in the first place.” So anger is a normal thing. It’s like water. It’s fluid. When I’m teaching my students, that’s what I tell them.</p> <p><strong>War touched everyone’s lives in your country. How is it today?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think today, really and truly, Liberia can be defined as that nation with very resilient people — a generation that saw war. There’s not a single household that did not suffer an impact of the war. But it’s a group of people who are willing to pick up the broken pieces and move ahead with their lives. And now you have a new generation of young people who have no clue of what we went through. Our duty now is to tell them that this is the path that we were on and we cannot study war anymore. We have to find a more stable means of dealing with our issues. So it’s a place that is trying to find itself because we lost ourselves for a moment.</p> <p><strong>You’ve written that so many men in your country didn’t even know who they were if they didn’t have a gun in their hands. How did you and the women in your movement try to change that?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think the process is still on for some generations of people. I think the process is still on because it’s been 15 years since the end of the war. We’ve gone through two democratic processes, but it was a mindset that was — I’ll tell you a story. When I used to work with child soldiers, many years ago, I was trying to break down rape with some of them. And when I said “rape,” all of them said to me, “No, we never rape anyone.” And I realized that they didn’t understand the concept, so the question was, “Did you ever force a woman to have sex?” “Oh, that. Yeah. Isn’t that what women are made for?”</p> <p><strong>They didn’t think anything was wrong with it? Who do you blame for that thinking?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: This is not unique to Liberia. I’ll tell you one thing. After I had that situation, my daughter — fast-forward maybe five or six years later or more — we moved to Ghana. And my eight-year-old, at the time, went to school on International Women’s Day. She’s this bubbly young feminist. She goes to school and tells all of the young children, “Today is International Women’s Day. The boys have to be nice to the girls.” And this little boy stands up — and this is Ghana. Ghana has never gone to war. He says, “Sit down and shut up. What are women good for? Just to make babies.”</p> <p>When she came home and told me that, my mind went back to my conversation eight years before. And the only thing that came to my mind was if you put a gun in that boy’s hand, he would do exactly what these boys did. And this is the task of ours now because I think it’s the same here. The way women are objectified. The way some young people in some communities are socialized to believe that the total sum of a woman is from here to here. Up here is nothing. Until we can change that mindset, we’ll continue to have those kinds of horrific rape and abuse with a whole generation of young people who doesn’t see it as doing anything wrong.</p> <p>Our former president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Elizabeth Rand did the first article for the UN on women’s peace and security. And one of the conclusions on the page, or the chapter on sexual violence, was that the impact of conflict on women’s lives is a reflection of the interaction in peacetime. And that, I have seen, since I read that — in all of the years that I’ve done my work — to be true.</p> <p><strong>What do you tell your sons and daughters about the role of women?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, I feel sorry for my sons. I have three. I think it’s a very difficult place, to be the son to a very strong African feminist. No if, but, or whatever. My feminism is unquestionable. In our houses, we do not have the “boys’ thing” because even when the African in me tried to say, “Girls, can you do this?” the girls would remind me, “We notice that you’ve been asking us to do a lot of kitchen stuff while your sons are sitting.” And then I have to, you know — so my daughters, they keep me — but my sons, I tell them that — I try not to talk a lot. I try to lead by example. So I see them pick up stuff from me, the way they treat women. I hope the way they do it in front of me is how they’re doing it when I’m not around. But I tell them that we’re equals.</p> <p>The way I see the world, men and women is like a left and right eye. If you leave one person out, you can’t see the whole picture clearly. So my sons know that very well. And it’s important, for me, for them to respect women, for them to understand that we’re partners in this world. So we have this common saying: “God didn’t take woman from the man’s head for him to lord over her. He didn’t take from the feet for him to kick her. He took from the side so that they’re equal partners in every venture.”</p> <p>So from a very young age, those were the kinds of stories that we tell in the house about partnership between men and women. But I often told my sons, when they’re getting married, I have a special gift for their wives. And it’s going to be packaged, and the wife is going to keep it until the day one of them raises their hand on her — that she has to call me so that we unwrap that gift. And then they say, “Mama, what is that gift?” I say, “It’s a cane. I’m going to wrap it nicely and give it to your wife because the day any of you touch your wives, we will unwrap that cane, and that wife and I will flog the hell out of you. You will never touch another woman in your life.” So we have that understanding.</p> <p><strong>These sexist attitudes and behaviors you talk about are so deeply ingrained. Do you ever feel like nothing you do will change things?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I’ll tell you a story. I was in the Congo several years ago, and I wrote an article about that experience. We had gone around with all of these fantastic activists all day. Myself, my good friend Abbie Disney, Gini Reticker — all of us were on that trip. And midway through the trip, that night, I went to my hotel room, sat down to get on my laptop to check emails, and then I heard all this commotion. “He’s a bad man! He’s a bad man!” So, a typical African woman will come out and put a wrap here. So that’s what I had, right up here. Ran out of my hotel room. Look, there’s this girl screaming, “He’s a bad man! He wants to do something bad to me.” So of course, the feminist in me is mobilized right there and then.</p> <p>Everyone came running, police and every different group of people coming running towards — so we go to that room, and whatever the talk in there, these people dragged this girl out, and they’re punching her, beating her. She’s naked, and they’re about to throw her in a pickup. So I run there and beg them to release her to me — that whatever the problem was, we could sort it out, and no one was listening to me. This is a big-shot international aid worker, who had taken this girl in his room to have his way with her, and she was saying that what he tried to do to her was not what they negotiated. And the police came. Instead of protecting her, he got protected, and she got beaten and taken away.</p> <p>So I went in my room, angry, crying, mad. Fussed and fussed. “Why did I have to be in the Congo to see this at this moment, God? Why is this my life?” Those are the moments where I’m just challenging Him and asking Him questions. And then, at the end of it, this still, small voice says, “So what do you do about it? You can’t fight, but you have your intellect.” So I sit down, and I write this article and send it off. I never see anything that I do. Someone would say, “So what did writing that article do?” It did something.</p> <p><strong>What did it do?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It created the awareness that this is the kind of madness that is happening in countries that are going through conflict. Today everyone is shocked when you talk about sexual exploitation in Haiti and other places. But those are the things that I wrote about.</p> <p><strong>Do you see that as your role now? To raise awareness that these things are going on? Because it’s still happening.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: To raise awareness, to fight when I’m physically present, and to use my voice to challenge the status quo. I tell people that I’ve always been poor in terms of resources, money, but I’m not a poor person. So the wealth of strength, the wealth of intelligence, the wealth of a platform — I’m going to use it to make good the space that I find myself in. But this is how I teach it to young children. Close your eyes and imagine that the problems of the world is a big, round ball. That’s all of the problems of the world — big. And you have every problem on that ball. It is a whole ball, right?</p> <p>And then you write an article to create an awareness, and someone is mobilized to do something about it. You’ve chipped off a tiny piece of that ball. Is it whole again? It’s not whole anymore because something has been taken out of it. So imagine if all of us were surrounding the problems of the world in this big ball and chipping out our tiny bit. Some people would be creating awareness; some people would be mobilizing a group. By the time we all do what we can do, it’s not a whole ball anymore. Maybe one percent of it has been chipped off. You know what you’ve done? You’ve saved one percent of the world from a catastrophe. That’s how I see it.</p> <p>So I don’t see any kind of advocacy, activism, social movement as not benefitting the world. Everything we do towards the greater good of humanity is making an impact. What else do you do? Sit down? I could cry in my room about that issue in the Congo and it won’t change the fact. The next morning, we went to breakfast, and I was able to point the guy out to say, “You did this to that girl.” So I shamed him. The manager of the hotel — because he thought I was a woman, or because I was black, or he woke up that morning and saw me sitting with all these white women at breakfast, he came to greet and tried to be nice, and I confronted him there and then.</p> <p><strong>What did he say?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: He tried to explain that these girls, they come, and they cause problems for their clients. And I was like, “No, your clients come and cause problems for these girls.” At least for him, there will always be people who will stand up to him. That’s the thing that I tell my children, that every time we back down on tyranny, we embolden them one step further. But every time you confront it, you are telling tyranny that there will always be people that will stand up to you. If not anything, that is the role that we all have to play in this world.</p> <p><strong>How did you hear that you won the Nobel Peace Prize? Can you tell us about the moment? </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: That’s the craziest story in the world. After I wrote the book, I got a grant from the founder of Barnes & Noble to do a tour. He said to me, “This is the story of my mother. This is the story of women everywhere, and I want you to go around the country and tell this story.”</p> <p><strong>The founder of Barnes & Noble’s bookstore said this to you?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yeah. Len Riggio. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell this, but I have to. I’m always giving credit. Len put this money up for me to do the book tour. So I started the tour, and my last stop to end the book tour was in California at Sheryl Sandberg’s house. So I had gone to Sheryl’s house. It was a wonderful evening. And when she introduced me to give my talk, she said, “The Nobel is up tomorrow, and my pick is you, Leymah.” And I was like, “Sheryl, stop. Don’t say that. I don’t do these things for accolades.” She said, “Well, but I still pick you.” And we laughed, had a great night.</p> <p><strong>Did you think you would win?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No.</p> <p><strong>It’s interesting that Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook was kind of in the know there. She knew that you were on the shortlist.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, the story had come up even in the newspapers in Liberia as far back as February. But I never internalized it. I never thought about it. I never saw myself as a Nobel contender. It’s not that I’m minimizing. This is not self-hate. It’s just that the work that I did, the work that the women did, was for our future and the future of our children. It was trying to change from existing to having a future.</p> <p><strong>So you were joking with Sheryl Sandberg.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yes, and all of her guests. But also, my sister, who lives in France, had a surgery the day before, and she was in ICU. So when you’ve lost one sister, and you’re five sisters, the rest of the three, you watch them with a hawk’s eye. So I get on this red-eye to fly to New York, to fly back to Ghana that same day. I sit next to a guy in his crisp white suit. He’s taking off his jacket. I had changed my clothes at the airport, so I wore one of those African <em>boubou</em> just to be relaxed on my flight, slippers, tied my hair, and I fell asleep. So we didn’t talk to each other. I think I was the only woman in that business class on that flight who wasn’t corporate-looking.</p> <p>So I slept, and in the morning, we landed in New York. I put my phone on. Voice message filled, text message inbox filled. My heart sank. Don’t tell me my sister has died and I’m getting all of these “sympathy, sympathy.” So I went to the first text message, and it was from Abbie. I remember vividly, “Nobel. Nobel. Nobel. I told you, my friend, you were going to win it one day.”</p> <p>And then, I went to my voice message, and my husband was — he said, “I’m sitting here crying. I can’t move. You won the Nobel Peace Prize.” So I turned to this guy sitting next to me and said, “Sir, I think I just won the Nobel Peace Prize.”</p> <p>And he looked at me like — so I didn’t look like this, no, I looked like — and then the guy in front of us overheard the conversation, whipped out his Blackberry, and he pulled the picture up, turned and looked at me, and said, “Yep, kiddo, I bet you did.” In that moment, I was hugging every man on that flight, even the ones that I was sitting next to me that didn’t know.</p> <p>And then Abbie called and said, “Don’t move. Get off the flight. We’re coming to get you. It’s crazy.” The kids — my son was at EMU, too. He had just gone to do his undergrad. And he was in his dorm room because the press people were trying to interview him and were trying to keep them — my kids don’t share my last name — they were trying to keep them away, protecting their privacy. I had one son — or daughter — living with Abbie at the time, so she couldn’t go to school. So everything changed.</p> <p>I had a speaking engagement that afternoon at the Church Center by Riverside Church. I was going to speak and then go on a flight. They could barely fill the room, and by ten o’clock that morning, it was standing room only. So yeah, I’d been picked up by Abbie, got to her apartment, and I have to find something decent to wear because there’s the media coming to interview me. We do not have an assistant for me, so people are calling, wanting to talk to me. They have to grab my phone from me. It’s just like,<br/> “What the hell is going on here?”</p> <p><strong>What was going through your mind?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I wasn’t emotional. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t laugh — because it was unbelievable. So then they send this limo for me, and I get to the Church Center. The one thing I remember was Len Riggio standing right in the crowd, like this, and nodding. Just smiling at me. And I go in there, and I think it was ABC or CBS, they’re already set up in there. Maybe Abbie is the one who will remember all of that, but I don’t remember a lot of that day. And then that night, I get on a flight to New York, and I’m praying. I want to cover my head because I just want to be left alone to process this. Then from New York to Ghana — I get to the airport in Ghana, and there’s the media and the press, and my kids can barely come close to me. I go home, and the women’s organization in Ghana that I work with, some of them have already reached my home. There was food. There were soft drinks. I’m like, “Jesus, what is this?” Then I get to Liberia the next day, and there’s this sea of white on the airport.</p> <p><strong>Because in your movement, all the women had worn white.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: So I got off the flight and just — meltdown, started praising God — and we go right back to the airfield where it all started.</p> <p><strong>Tell us about the moment on the airfield, all those years before, when the movement started.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: It was a morning, early morning, when we decided that was the space that we’re going to use to protest. And over 2,500 women showed up that day, a sea of white. And the moment I won the Nobel, those women were there. People had traveled from their villages to come and see me, to see what is this that they said I had won.</p> <p><strong>And this was a movement that had started with a handful of women and ten dollars.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: We were seven women when we started, and ten dollars — seven and ten.</p> <p><strong>And you won a Nobel Prize. How do you think the prize has changed your life?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, my God, I barely sleep in my bed for 30 days. If I spend two weeks at home, that’s a long stretch. But it’s changed it. Places that I never imagined someone from my background — the girl from that closely-knitted, partial-slum community — would be sitting with kings and queens and presidents and leaders of the world, and her voice would be counted in conversations.</p> <p><strong>You don’t have to be perfect.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No. And people say to me, “You were so open about —” But that’s me, and imagine if I had been very, very crafty about trying to cover up some of these things. I’m at a place now, after winning the Nobel, where people will be digging. But sometimes, when I get questions in the media about my life, I say, “Please patronize me. Buy my book. It’s all in there. You don’t need to go digging. I put everything in there.” And when I write about the next phase of my life, I’m going to be equally brutally honest about winning the prize and all of the pains and tears that comes with it. Not knowing there is a five-year thing. Other people will say, “Five years. It takes five years for you to get used to all of this.” And I survived my fifth year in December. I did.</p> <p><strong>You shared the prize with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who had been the president of Liberia, the first elected woman leader of an African nation. And then later you had the guts to stand up to her. Why?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Because I’m a troublemaker. That’s my nature. But also because there was a lot of double standards about the way things were being done. And I needed to call it out for what it was. The double standards of the way we were doing peace and reconciliation and talking about transparency because President Sirleaf is in the history books of Liberia as the one woman who criticized every regime for appointing their relatives, and she was falling right in that trap. Her one son was the head of the board of the oil company. Another son was the deputy at the Central Bank. Another was in charge of national security.</p> <p><strong>She had done good work. She had achieved something for women, winning elected office. But you still have to speak truth to power.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I had to because I also realized that our movement was the one that was making the case for women. And if we kept silent in those moments, there would be critical times when the rest of Liberia will be waiting. We would try to speak afterwards, and no one would listen to us. So it had to come from one of those voices.</p> <p>And one of the things that I fell out with the president — I never really got to be in good books with her again — but one of the things that I remember quite well was going back home and being met by the same ordinary women that I worked with, and them coming to me and saying, “Thank you very much for saying what we all had been saying, but no one would listen to us. Thank you for using your voice on our behalf.”</p> <p><strong>You’ve written about a “culture of impunity” that flourished throughout Africa — people, officials, and governments. They committed evil but were never held accountable. </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yeah. And it’s still true to today. Impunity is the big word that hangs over the continent. People can do whatever the hell they want to do, and as long as they still have the money, they still wield power. No one will hold them accountable. We’re still in a huge fight in Liberia for them to establish some kind of court for someone like Prince Jones and the warlords — and others who did terrible harm to the Liberian people — to be held accountable for what they’ve done. How else do we mentor or socialize the next generation of leaders? That it’s okay to rape, kill, and maim people and you can be a leader? You protect yourself? No, we need to begin to lay down rules that would really help us to get to the place that we need to get to.</p> <p>People are worried and upset about the level of leadership that we’re seeing around the world. Until we can change the way we do justice through peace, reconciliation, and human rights, we’ll continue to see the worst kind of leaders in any kind of state power because the world has made it okay for those kinds of people to rule.</p> <p><strong>You’ve been called a troublemaker more than once. Were you a troublemaker as a child, too?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: No. Well, yes. As a child, I was not a troublemaker because I was so afraid of punishment. But I was the instigator of trouble. My sister, who is a bit older than I am, was the real troublemaker. But I was the talkative one who stirred up things. So my grandmother, even though she’s old, she persistently asks my husband, “Are any of your kids like your wife?” I was that person who would go and — I was a very observant child. I would see things and come home and stir up trouble. Like, my parents would tell stories of someone who, once upon a time, was cheating on her husband, and I would follow this woman. And I came home, and one day they heard them fight. They went there, and the husband said, “Leymah was the one who led me to where these two lovers would meet.” So yeah, I was kind of a troublemaker growing up. In high school, I was very much interested in politics. I’ve always been — how do you say it? I’ve always been an admirer of someone who has been drawn to justice issues.</p> <p><strong>When you were growing up, did you plan to become a doctor?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Yeah. Now my daughter is the one who looks exactly like me. She just got her white coat on Friday, so she’s going to be a pediatrician.</p> <p><strong>Congratulations. Women around the world look at what you’ve done in Liberia. You’re still traveling a lot, aren’t you?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I’m traveling a lot. I’m doing a lot with young people, which I love because I think it’s important for us to mentor a next generation of young people to let them know that this can be you. And I’m really loving working with my foundation in Liberia, sending girls, especially, to school. And just seeing one group of young people who could barely talk — I’d spent three months in Monrovia, and I’d been sitting with these little children and the young adults and listening to some of their hopes and dreams. I’m like, “Wow, these were children who came into this program five, six years ago, who could barely express themselves.” And today, one of my favorite, favorite moments of my time in Liberia was telling one of my students that we’re going to take her off the scholarship because she had misbehaved. I was set on letting her go. Then these six young people walked into my room, ranging from ages 10 to 16, and they came and said, “Madam Gbowee, we need to talk to you.” And I indulged them. “Have a seat. What’s going on?” They said, “We came to ask you to reconsider your decision to take our colleague back on the scholarship.” And that they had paid a visit to her house — her grandparents were in no position to send her to school, and that she was just going to end up being a teen mother. Well, at that moment, I just sat there and said, “We must be doing something very right, that these young children can come into a room. This is not the world that I knew.”</p> <p><strong>What’s your message to young people? You mentor a lot of them. What is the one thing that you really want them to know?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: That we all have that unique gift deep down inside of us. We just have to go there and find it and take it and maximize it for your good and for the greater good of the world.</p> <p><strong>What was the moment you found your gift?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I think I found it, and I lost it, and I found it again. But I think, growing up, as a child, by the time I entered high school, I knew that my voice would be my greatest gift and that I could use it for the good of humanity.</p> <p><strong>The story of grassroots activism is synonymous with your name now.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I’m blessed. That’s all I can say. But there’s a long way to everything that we do. We can’t say we can finish it all. We can play our part. You know, play our tiny role. Most times, that’s what I say to my kids: “You just do what you got to do.” My nine-year-old has been saying to me recently, “Mommy, I want to be like you.” And I said to her, “The first thing you need to do is to learn how to use your voice. So if someone came and misbehaved, you have to tell them.” My key message to her, as a nine-year-old, recently has been, “You don’t need to be friends with everyone, but you’re forced to respect everyone. And everyone doesn’t need to be friends with you, but everyone is forced to respect you.” And that’s the message. So for her nine-year-old ears: “I don’t have to be your friend, but when you greet me, it is my duty to respond. I don’t have to be your friend, but it is my duty to show you respect. And vice versa.”</p> <p><strong>You’re only 46. There could be a lot more troubles to come. What are you thinking of for the next phase of your life?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, I’m hoping to retire when I’m 60, and I’ll get into politics.</p> <p><strong>And what are you going to do until then? </strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Well, it’s not so long. What? Fourteen years. I’m giving my last two kids the opportunity to be out of high school because then they’re able to process when I’m not around and they’re reading stuff about me on the Internet. We can have a real nice conversation about stuff. And then, also, I won’t have any reason, to be a politician, that I can be easily compromised. My kids would have been educated. I would have done everything that I wanted to do as an activist, and I will just be getting into whatever political space that I’m getting in to get some job done.</p> <p><strong>Would you like to be the president of Liberia?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: We’ll wait to see what it will bring, but I’m definitely thinking about getting into politics, whether it’s the Senate, whether it’s the presidency, whether it’s being the commissioner of my village. Whatever it is, I’m definitely, at 60, going to retire into politics. I’m a politician. I’m an activist. I’m a politician. I’m a feminist. And people say, “Why would you say you’re a politician?” I say, “Because the personal is political and political is personal.”</p> <p><strong>You talk a lot about God and your faith. When you received this calling from God that we talked about, did you ever ask Him why a quarter of a million people were killed in Liberia’s war?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Oh, my God, yes. We have conversations. You should be there. You’d think I’ve lost my mind. Sometimes I put a chair down and say, “Hey, God, let’s have a conversation.”</p> <p><strong>But your faith is important to you.</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: Extremely important. I doubt if, without God, I would be where I am. I see my journey as — and that’s why I’m able to endure some of the things that I endure. That’s why I’m able to keep going. That’s why I’m able to really rise above some of the difficulties because I never see what I do as a day’s job. I see it as a call from God. So I’m on a journey of peace activism, but it’s also a spiritual journey.</p> <p><strong>Where do you think the path ahead is going to lead you?</strong></p> <p>Leymah Gbowee: I don’t know, but I’m trusting God that it’s going to be a good path. Whether it leads me to — my husband and my dream is to retire in our village on our 50-acre farm — if that is where God leads me — and I’m teaching a community school. Also, if it leads me into being a great politician — also, if it leads me on the world stage — also, wherever it leads me, I know there are good things ahead. That’s all I know — good things ahead of me.</p> <p><strong>Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Leymah Gbowee Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>21 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2011: The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee poses with her medal and certificate during the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo. (Cornelius Poppe and Getty)" data-image-copyright="The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Lib" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-LG-holding-medal-GettyImages-135444692-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.64736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651.jpg" data-image-caption="October 9, 2011: Leymah Gbowee is welcomed by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Monrovia. Liberia buzzed with election fever as the Nobel Laureates took to the streets in a boost for the incumbent’s re-election bid. The music throbbed as chanting and dancing supporters — leaning out of car windows and dressed in party colors — weaved their way through the traffic-clogged streets of Monrovia, while police kept a close watch. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="LIBERIA-VOTE-NOBEL-SIRLEAF-GBOWEE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651-380x246.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-oct-9-2011-GettyImages-451029651-760x492.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906.jpg" data-image-caption="August 28, 2003: Liberian women staging a protest march in front of the ECOMIL headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia. Leymah Gbowee was 17 years old when the First Liberian Civil War started in 1989. While the conflict raged, she became a young mother and eventually trained as a social worker and trauma counselor. Gbowee came to believe in women’s responsibility to work proactively to restore peace and became a founding member of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). She organized Christian and Muslim women to mobilize for peace, giving rise to the interfaith movement known as the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Leymah was appointed its spokesperson and led the women in weeks-long public protests that grew to include thousands of committed participants. (Photo credit: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="A picture taken on August 28, 2003 shows" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377906-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436.jpg" data-image-caption="September 17, 2013: Leymah Gbowee speaks at the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, an international platform looking at major social and economic issues from women’s perspectives, at Piccolo Teatro, Milan. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="'Women In Business And Society' Forum" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2013-GettyImages-180892436-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66052631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988.jpg" data-image-caption="August 1990: Rebels loyal to the warlord Charles Taylor, holding Kalashnikov machine guns, pass by bodies of soldiers loyal to President Samuel Doe, in Monrovia. Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which included former Liberian military men and civilians, was one of the first to recruit children as soldiers. The NPFL clashed with government forces and other ethnic militias supporting President Doe between December 1989 and mid-1993. During that period, all groups involved in the fighting generated civilian casalities, but Taylor’s NPFL was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Liberians, both military and civilians, who opposed him. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="The rebels loyal to the warlord Charles" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Aug-11-1990-GettyImages-127555988-760x502.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648.jpg" data-image-caption="Singer, songwriter and humanitarian Peter Gabriel, presenting the Golden Plate Award to Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, at the 53rd International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-2019Summit_0648" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0648-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124.jpg" data-image-caption="August 8, 1990: Refugees flee their homes as forces from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) head to the Liberian capital, Monrovia. The First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996) was one of Africa’s bloodiest civil conflicts in the post-independence era. The civil war claimed more than 200,000 Liberian lives in a nation of 2.1 million people and displaced a million other citizens in refugee camps in neighboring countries. On December 24, 1989, a band of Libyan-trained rebels, led by Charles Taylor, invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast. The NPFL, Taylor’s rebel group, consisted mostly of people from the ethnic Gio and Mano tribes of Nimba County, northeastern Liberia. The Gio and Mano people had long been opposed and persecuted by Liberian President Samuel Doe and his Krahn ethnic group. (© Patrick Robert/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Civil War in Liberia" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-1990-GettyImages-542377124-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092.jpg" data-image-caption="October 9, 2011: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, walks with fellow 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee in Monrovia. Liberia holds its general elections on October 11, since the end of successive civil wars between 1989 and 2003, and was ruled by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from 2006 until 2018. The women’s peace movement, organized by Gbowee, helped to end the war in 2003 and led to the election of Johnson Sirleaf. After winning the 2011 election, Johnson Sirleaf announced the formation of a national peace and reconciliation initiative to be headed by Leymah Gbowee. (Photo credit: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP and Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Liberian President and joint Nobel Peace" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-Oct-9-2011-GettyImages-128802092-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2011: View of the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony at City Hall in Oslo, Norway. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to three female political activists, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, who received their prizes in a ceremony at Oslo’s City Hall. (© Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="General view of the 2011 Nobel Peace Pri" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-City-Hall-GettyImages-135444753-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500.jpg" data-image-caption="2011: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee is greeted by her family as she arrives from the United States at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Gbowee said it was her goal to seek absolute peace in Africa and the world. Gbowee, who helped found a Ghana-based NGO called Women Peace and Security Network Africa, said that she would use her prize money to provide scholarships for girls in Africa and to help women who are victims of war. (© Getty)" data-image-copyright="Nobel peace prize joint winner Leymah Gb" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-October-08-2011-GettyImages-128785500-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5079365079365" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers.jpg" data-image-caption="2013: In <i>Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War</i>, peace activist Leymah Gbowee shares her inspirational story of how a group of women working together created an indomitable force that ended a bitter war and brought peace to Liberia." data-image-copyright="mighty be our powers" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/mighty-be-our-powers-504x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0352.jpg" data-image-caption="2019: Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, addressing delegates and members at a symposium at the Four Seasons Hotel during the 53rd annual International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-image-copyright="wp-2019Summit_0352" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0352-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0352-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806.jpg" data-image-caption="May 24, 2015: A group of female peace activists, including feminist activist Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Mairead Maguire of Ireland, march with other activists to the Imjingak Pavilion, along military wire fences near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, to deliver a peace message on International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty)" data-image-copyright="International Peace Activists March Demilitarized Zone In Korea" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2015-GettyImages-474585806-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778.jpg" data-image-caption="April 24, 2016: Liberian peace activist and women’s rights advocate Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee; General Secretary of Bonded Labour Liberation Front Syeda Ghulam Fatima; human rights lawyer and Iran’s first female judge, Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi; actor George Clooney; former United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders Hina Jilani; and Maison Shalom founder Marguerite Barankitse attend the laying of the flowers at the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia. (Photo: Andreas Rentz and Getty)" data-image-copyright="101st Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2016-GettyImages-523708778-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2011: Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (R), Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee (C), and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman (L) pose with their medals and certificates during the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Johnson Sirleaf, Gbowee, and Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding work.” (Photo credit: CORNELIUS POPPE/AFP/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="NORWAY-PEACE-NOBEL" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-dec-10-2011-3-nobel-peace-prize-recipients-GettyImages-451029733-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480.jpg" data-image-caption="October 5, 2017: Leymah Gbowee (second from right), head of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), stands with group members in front of a sign calling for peaceful elections in Monrovia. Dressed in identical skirts, 100 Liberian women knelt in prayer, after another long day in three weeks of fasting, asking again that Liberia be spared of violence. Ahead of elections on October 10, 2017, women of all ages gathered from dawn to dusk on a roadside near the party headquarters of several presidential candidates, in an echo of protests that helped bring an end to Liberia's back-to-back civil wars, which spanned from 1989 to 2003. (Zoom Dosso and Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="LIBERIA-VOTE-PEACE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2017-GettyImages-858054480-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.62631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231.jpg" data-image-caption="2011: Leymah Gbowee and women's rights activists gather on a dusty soccer field beside Tubman Boulevard, the route Charles Taylor traveled twice a day, to and from Capitol Hill, where they would pray for peace during the civil war. Liberia buzzed with election fever as Nobel Peace Prize Laureates President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and activist Leymah Gbowee took to the streets in a boost for the incumbent's re-election bid. Music throbbed as chanting and dancing supporters — leaning out of car windows and dressed in party colors — weaved their way through the traffic-clogged streets of the seaside capital, while UN and riot police kept a close watch. (© Issouf Sanogo/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Liberia's joint Nobel Peace Prize 2011 L" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231-380x238.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2011-GettyImages-128807231-760x476.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904.jpg" data-image-caption="August 28, 2003: Liberian women stage a protest march in front of the ECOMIL headquarters in Monrovia. Leymah Gbowee called together women from different ethnic and religious groups in the fight for peace when bloody civil wars ravaged Liberia. Dressed in white T-shirts, they held daily demonstrations in Monrovia. (© Pius Utomi Ekpei)" data-image-copyright="A picture taken on August 28, 2003 shows" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2003-GettyImages-128377904-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981.jpg" data-image-caption="April 17, 2008: Leymah Gbowee, subject of the documentary <i>Pray the Devil Back to Hell</i>, attends The White House Project’s 2008 EPIC Awards in New York City. In June 2003, Gbowee led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement in public protests that forced Liberia’s President Charles Taylor to meet with them and agree to take part in formal peace talks in Accra, Ghana. Gbowee led a delegation of women to Accra, where they applied strategic pressure to ensure progress was made. At a crucial moment when the talks seemed stalled, Gbowee and nearly 200 Christian and Muslim women formed a human barricade to prevent Taylor’s representatives and the rebel warlords from leaving the meeting hall for food or any other reason until, the women demanded, the men had reached a peace agreement. Within weeks, Taylor resigned the presidency and went into exile. The Second Liberian Civil War ended on August 18, 2003, with the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/WireImage)" data-image-copyright="The White House Project Honors Culture Changers at The 2008 Epic Awards" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp-2008-GettyImages-110082981-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344.jpg" data-image-caption="Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, addresses Academy delegates and members at a symposium at the Four Seasons Hotel during the 53rd annual International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-2019Summit_0344" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0344-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WhatItTakes_gbowee-256.jpg" data-image-caption="Leymah Gbowee" data-image-copyright="WhatItTakes_gbowee-256" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WhatItTakes_gbowee-256.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WhatItTakes_gbowee-256.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235248/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. 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