Notable Peace & Justice Activists Posters “O...-”
with curriculum enrichment resources for social studies classrooms, teachers, home schoolers, offices.

Barack Obama
Sandra Day O'Connor

Clifford Odets
Amelia Opie

Barack Obama Photographic Print

Barack Obama
b. 8-4-1961; Hawaii

Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

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Sandra Day O’Connor
b. 3-26-1930; Texas

Poster Text: When President Ronald Reagan introduced Sandra Day O'Connor as the newest member of the United States Supreme Court, he called her “a person for all seasons” with ‘unique qualities of temperament [and] fairness.’ Those who knew Sandra Day O'Connor agreed that the President had made a wise choice.

Sandra Day grew up on a sprawling ranch on the Arizona-New Mexico border. She was a bit of a tomboy and loved riding horses and roping steers. She was also an excellent student, and she finished High school when she was only sixteen. She attended Stanford Law School and graduated near the top of her class. Amazingly, one of her fellow students was a young man named William Rehnquist, who would later serve with Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court. After graduating from Stanford, she married John O'Connor and was elected to the Arizona State Senate. But when she was forced to choose between politics and the law, she chose the law, going to work as a judge.

When Justice Potter Stuart announced his retirement in 1981, President Reagan was determined to keep his campaign promise to appoint a woman to the Court. After a long search, the President chose Sandra Day O'Connor, saying, “She meets in every way the very high standards demanded of all Court appointees.”

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Clifford Odets
b. 7-18-1906; Philadelphia, PA
d. 8-18-1963; Los Angeles, CA (colon cancer)

Playwright, screenwriter, and movie director Clifford Odets used his art form to criticize exploitative economic systems. His reputation as a socialist and social protester earned him the distinction of being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1952 where he repeated names already revealed. His bending to the pressure of the committee tormented him for the rest of his life.

FYI- Odets’ first wife was actress Luise Rainer.

Clifford Odets quotes ~
• “It is weird! The child raised by a dominating, authoritarian parent, develops both resistance and emulation. The thing, in other words, is bitterly fought but is simultaneously seen as some powerful thing, admirable, to be imitated. Hell results!”
• “Life shouldn't be printed on dollar bills.”
• “One night some short weeks ago, for the first time in her not always happy life, Marilyn Monroe's soul sat down alone to a quiet supper from which it did not rise.”

Amelia Opie
née Alderson
b. 11-12-1769; Norwich
d. 12-1-1852; Norwich

Writer Amelia Opie is noted for her radical principles. She was friends with Mary Wollstoncraft, Sarah Siddons and Madame de Stael, and joined the Society of Friends (Quakers) who are known for their social activism. She was married to the painter John Opie who encouraged her literary pursuits.

Amelia Opie quote ~
• “But oh! if grief thy steps attend,
If want, if sickness be thy lot,
And thou require a soothing friend,
Forget me not! forget me not!” Friends

• Memorials of the life of Amelia Opie, selected and arranged from her letters, diaries, and other manuscripts

Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder

Mary White Ovington
b. 4-11-1865; Brooklyn
d. 7-15-1951

Suffragette, socialist, Unitarian, and journalist Mary White Ovington, was one of the founding members of the NAACP.

Front Cover The Crisis, Edited by Robert Owen, Giclee Print

Robert Owen
b. 5-14-1771; Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales
d. 11-17-1858; Wales

Social reformer and founder of the “cooperative movement” Robert Owen was the first to establish infant childcare in Great Britain. Owen also started the utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana in 1825.

Owen, who married Caroline the daughter of reform minded manufacturer David Dale, was also Dale's business partner in the New Lanark cotton mills along the River Clyde, not far from Glasgow, Scotland.

Owen's four sons became U.S. citizens: one was elected to Congress representing Indiana, one became a U.S. geologist surveying the northwest, and the youngest became a professor of natural science.

FYI ~ Owen is cited as being an influence on the thought of Nikolay Chernyshevsky.

Robert Owen quotes ~
• “Never argue; repeat your assertion.”
• “To train and educate the rising generation will at all times be the first object of society, to which every other will be subordinate.”
• “The three lower rooms (in the Institute) will be thrown open for the use of the adult part of the population, who are to be provided with every accommodation requisite to enable them to read, write, account, sew or play, converse or walk about. Two evenings in the week will be appropriated to dancing and music, but on these occasions, every accommodation will be prepared for those who prefer to study or to follow any of the occupations pursued on the other evenings.”
• “Where are these rational practices to be taught and acquired? Not within the four walls of a bare building, in which formality predominates . . . But in the nursery, play-ground, fields, gardens, workshops, manufactures, museums and class-rooms. . . . The facts collected from all these sources will be concentrated, explained, discussed, made obvious to all, and shown in their direct application to practice in all the business of life.”

• A New View of Society and Other Writings