Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War
Leymah Gbowee (Author), Carol Mithers (Contributor)
Leymah Gbowee on "Mighty Be Our Powers"; 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate - the power of women, united, to change the world around them - The amazing story of a woman who refused to let war, politics, tragedy, circumstance (even her own bad choices) continue to disempower her and her people.
Audio CD Unabridged Audiobook (December 13, 2011)
Kindle Edition File Size: 881 KB
About the Author
Leymah Gbowee is the winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. She is also the Newsweek and The Daily Beast's Africa columnist. As war ravaged Liberia, Leymah Gbowee realized it is women who bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts. She began organizing Christian and Muslim women to demonstrate together, founding Liberian Mass Action for Peace and launching protests and a sex strike. Gbowee's part in helping to oust Charles Taylor was featured in the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Gbowee is a single mother of six, including one adopted daughter, and is based in Accra, Ghana, where she is the cofounder and executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network-Africa.
Carol Mithers is a Los Angeles-based journalist and book author. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of national publications.
Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace
Working together, over 3,000 Christian and Muslim women mobilized their efforts, and as a result, the women were able to achieve peace in Liberia after a 14-year civil war and helped bring to power the country's first female president. This group of Liberian women formed an organization called Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. The delegation of women organized nonviolence protests and continued to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. They forced a meeting with President Charles Taylor, extracting a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. They staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace, bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.
Liberian - first and second Civil War
The First Liberian Civil War ended with the Liberian general election, 1997 in which Charles Taylor took power. The second civil war began in April 1999, when Liberian dissidents under the banner of the Organisation of Displaced Liberians attacked into Liberia from Guinea.
President of Liberia
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first modern, and currently the only elected, female head of state in Africa.
President Taylor resigned on August 11, 2003, ahead of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which formed the negotiated end to the war, and was flown into exile in Nigeria.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born 29 October 1938) is the 24th and current President of Liberia. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She placed a very distant second in the 1997 presidential election. Later, she was elected President in the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006. She successfully ran for re-election in 2011. Sirleaf is the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa.
2011 Nobel Peace Prize
Sirleaf was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work."
