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

Alphonse de Lamartine
Christian Louis Lange
Lao-tzu

Frances Moore Lappé
John Lennon
Denise Levertov

Alphonse de Lamartine
b. 10-21-1790; Macon, Burgundy, France
d. 2-28-1869; Paris

Alphonse de Lamartine, a politician and Romantic poet most noted for his poem “Le Lac” (“The Lake”) and for playing an important part in the founding of France's Second Republic supported democracy, pacifism, the abolition of both slavery and the death penalty.

Alphonse de Lamartine quotes ~
• “A conscience without God is like a court without a judge.”
• “Brutality to an animal is cruelty to mankind - it is only the difference in the victim.”
• “Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.”
• “Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.”
• “The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.”
• “There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.”
• “Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.”
• “To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.”

• Meditations Poetiques by Alphonse de Lamartine

Christian Louis Lange
b. 9-17-1869; Stavanger, Norway
d. 12-11-1938

Teacher and political scientist Christian Louis Lange was one of the world's foremost exponents of the theory and practice of internationalism.

He shared the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize with Swedish Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting.

• Christian Louis Lange at Amazon

Lao-Tzu on His Buffalo, Followed by a Disciple, Giclee Print

Lao Tzu
b. fl. 6th century BC; Ancient China

Lao Tzu, a philosopher and central figure in Taoism, who espoused avoiding such circumstances as war, harsh laws and heavy taxes.

Lao Tzu attracted a large number of students and loyal disciples according to popular traditional biographies. It is said he left China riding on the back of a water buffalo.

Frances Moore Lappé
b. 2-10-1944; Pendleton, Oregon

Author Frances Moore Lappè reveals that world hunger is caused the inability of hungry people to gain access to the abundant amount of food that exists in the world and/or food-producing resources because they are simply too poor, rather than the lack of food. She follow that we have a “thin democracy” creating a maldistribution of power and resources resulting in inevitably waste and an artificial scarcity of the essentials for sustainable living.

Lappé received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, and she and her daughter Anna are the founders of Small Planet Institute.

Frances Moore Lappé quotes ~
• “The act of utting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth.”
• “I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.”

John Lennon Poster

John Lennon
b. 10-9-1940; Liverpool, England
d. 12-8-1980; NYC

“If everyone practices being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren't, there would be peace.”

Denise Levertov
b. 10-24-1923; Ilford, England
d. 12-20-1997; Seattle, WA

Poet Denise Levertov, who served as a nurse during the London Blitz, married an American, and became a naturalized citizen in 1955, had her first poem published at age 17.

Levertov was the poetry editor for The Nation, a member of the War Resisters League in response to the Vietnam War, and was professor at several universities.

Denise Levertov quotes ~
• “One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.”
• “The poems has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion . . . elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.”
• “Images / split the truth / in fractions.”

Sinclair Lewis
b. 2-7-1885; Sauk Center, MN
d. 1-10-1951; Rome (alcoholism)

Novelist, short-story writer, and playwright Sinclair Lewis was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1930), “for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters.”

Sinclair Lewis' works are “insightful and critical views of American society and capitalist values, as well as their strong characterizations of modern working women”.

FYI - Sinclair Lewis was married to journalist Dorothy Thompson from 1928-1940/42.

Sinclair Lewis quotes ~
• “When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
• “Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.”
• “The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.”

• Lewis: Main Street and Babbitt
• Literary Techniques Posters - Metaphor

Belva Ann Lockwood, née Bennett
b. 10-24-1830; Royalton, NY
d. 5-19-1917

Belva A. Lockwood overcame social and personal obstacles to become an educator, attorney, and author active in working for women's rights such as equal pay for women. Lockwood was the first woman to be sworn in as member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar and in 1880 she became the first woman lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Lockwood also ran for president in 1884, reportedly receiving 4,100 votes, and supported the movement for world peace and temperance.

• Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President

Albert John Lutuli (Luthuli)
b. c. 1899; Groutville near Durban, South Africa
d. 7-21-1967; South Africa

Albert John Lutuli, teacher and President of the African National Congress, was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize being “in the very forefront of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.”