Peace Prize Laureates – FOR-USA (original) (raw)

Jane Addams (1931) – USA

Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 28, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women’s suffrage in the United States and advocated for world peace. She co-founded Chicago’s Hull House, one of America’s most famous settlement houses. In 1920, she was a co-founder for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In 1931, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States.

Emily Greene Balch (1946) – USA

Emily Greene Balch (January 8, 1867 – January 9, 1961) was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as poverty, child labor, and immigration, as well as settlement work to uplift poor immigrants and reduce juvenile delinquency.

She moved into the peace movement at the start of World War I in 1914, and began collaborating with Jane Addams of Chicago. She became a central leader of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) based in Switzerland, for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.

Chief Albert Luthuli (1960) – South Africa

Inkosi Albert John Luthuli (c. 1898 – 21 July 1967), also known by his Zulu name Mvumbi, was a South African teacher, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and politician. In 1952, Luthuli was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC), at the time an umbrella organization leading opposition to the white minority government in South Africa. He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against apartheid. He was the first person of African heritage to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1964) – USA

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War.

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire (1976) – Northern Ireland

Mairead Maguire (born 27 January 1944), also known as Mairead Corrigan Maguire and formerly as Mairéad Corrigan, is a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She co-founded, with Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown, the Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organization dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire and Williams were awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980) – Argentina

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born November 26, 1931) is an Argentine activist, community organizer, painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to Argentina’s last civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983), during which he was detained, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months; during that period he also received, among other distinctions, the Pope John XXIII Peace Memorial.