Africa

How Leymah Gbowee Led a Women’s Movement That Ended a Civil War

Bill Thompson
Photo by Fronteiras do Pensamento

If men start the wars, is it up to the women to end them

At the start of the 21st century, the West African nation of Liberia was embroiled in its second civil war. The war left thousands dead, many thousands of others displaced

A young single mother named Leymah Gbowee had enough, and formed a women’s group to press for peace,

Her movement quickly grew, and its peaceful, non-violent efforts – including a controversial “sex strike” – produced a peace agreement in 2003.

Get your copy of Leymah Gbowee’s book

And that, in turn, led to the election of the first modern-day female elected head of state in Africa, ElLen Johnson Sirleaf.

For their work, Gbowee and Sirleaf shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. That same year Gbowee wrote a memoir called Mighty Be Our Powers. That’s when I met her.

So here now, from 2011, Leymah Gbowee,

Leymah Gbowee is 52 now. And Liberia, although still facing many challenges, continues to make strides toward full democracy.

Iconic Big Game Hunter Peter Capstick and His Love of Africa

Bill Thompson

Peter Capstick had a promising future on Wall Street in the 1960s But business wasn’t his passion. Africa was, and more specifically, hunting in Africa.

Capstick became a professional hunter, leading safaris and writing books and articles about hunting.

Get your copy of Peter Capstick’s book

Often drawing comparisons to Ernest Hemingway, Cap[stick built a reputation as a hunter and guide.

And hunters today will recognize his name from the .470 Capstick rifle cartridge.

I met him in 1987 while he was on tour for his book Peter Capstick’s Africa.

So here now, from 1987, Peter Capstick.

Peter Capstick died in South Africa in1996. He was 56.

Peggielene Bartels: The Woman Who Became A King

Bill Thompson

When you were a kid, did you ever have that fantasy that you were actually a prince or princess but nobody knew it?

In 2008, a telephone call to a woman who is a secretary living in suburban Washington. DC brought that fantasy to reality for her.

Her name is Peggielene Bartels, and in 2008 when her uncle passed away, she was notified that she had been chosen as the new king of the town of Otuam in her native Ghana.

Suddenly facing a dizzying array of new responsibilities, King Peggy, as she became known, embraced the new role and assumed leadership of her community.

In 2012 she told her story in a book called King Peggy and that’s when I had the chance to meet her. So here now from 2012. King Peggy.

King Peggy still works at the embassy of Ghana in Washington, and still lives in the suburbs. She is 70.

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Wangari Maathai

Wilma Mankiller

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Wangari Maathai

Bill Thompson

She was the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize.

Kenyan-born Wangari Maathai was educated in the U.S., then returned to Kenya and became a social, environmental and political activist

Photo: Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com

In 1977, when she was 37 years old, Wangari Maathai established what she called the “Green Belt Movement.”

What started as a modest effort to improve the environment and natural resources grew into a major environmental — and women’s rights — effort. And it frequently got Maathai in trouble.

I met her 14 years ago when she wrote a book about her life and her work.

Here now, from 2006, Wangari Maathai.

Wangari Maathai died in 2011 after fighting ovarian cancer at age 71. She is buried at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies in Nairobi, Kenya.