Kalamazoo Women in Black is part of the International movement of Women in Black which opposes all kinds of human rights abuses. That movement began in January of 1988 when an Israeli human rights activist, named Gila Svirsky, invited both Palestinian and Israeli women to stand for peace. Together, they stood in Jerusalem calling for the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip. They held a banner that read: "We Refuse To Be Enemies."
The movement spread spontaneously all over the world, at first in solidarity with the women in Israel and Palestine. It later became a public forum for women to express their rejection of all kinds of human rights abuses.
Throughout the world, Women in Black worked so hard to stop the first Iraq war that they were awarded the Nobel Prize for peace by the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
The Kalamazoo Women in Black was formed in September, 2002 to prevent yet another war on Iraq. It has since become a local forum to appeal to the human conscience in everyone in order to end all forms of injustice, to stop war and violence and to respect the value of all life.
We believe in the power of women to change the world and in their ability to transcend all barriers of ethnicity, religion and politics.