Leymah Gbowee

She led Liberian women in a nonviolent campaign to end the civil war.

Leymah Gbowee
b. 1972, Monrovia, Liberia
Works in Monrovia

Women are the ones that bear the greatest burden. We are also the ones who nurture societies.
—Leymah Gbowee, interview, 2008

• Gbowee is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist whose interfaith organization, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, is credited with helping to bring an end to Liberia’s 14-year civil war.
• Gbowee gathered thousands of women from across ethnic/religious divisions throughout the country to organize protests and strikes in Monrovia.
• When peace talks held in Accra, Ghana, appeared to be breaking down, Gbowee and 200 other women formed a human barricade, preventing warlord Charles Taylor and his representatives from leaving until peace had been achieved.
• The close of the conflict paved the way for the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state.