Ava Lowery | |
---|---|
Born | Evelyn Ingrid Lowrey 1990 |
Known for | Peace Activism, Animations, 'WWJD'? , Documentary Filmmaker |
Website | http://www.peacetakescourage.com http://www.avalowrey.com |
Ava Lowery is an American peace activist and documentary filmmaker from Alabama who has created over 100 Flash-based animations denouncing the Iraq War, former United States President George W. Bush, policies of the Republican Party and several individual Republican politicians. She has actively demonstrated against the war, and in support of soldiers. [1]
Lowery is also the creator of the website Peace Takes Courage, and she and her work have received national media attention in 2005 and 2006, including interviews on Fox News. She is noted for her creation of an online animation, "WWJD" (which stands for "What Would Jesus Do?"). [2] This flash-based animation displays photographs of wounded Iraqi children and suggests what we should do from a Christian angle over the song "Jesus Loves Me."
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan, founder of the Gold Star Families for Peace, has praised Lowery and her work and wrote an article in support of her "new friend... (who) is also against the war and the Bush regime." [3] In July 2006 Lowery was awarded the BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice" award. [4] She is also a person of interest in the blog world, and was a featured speaker at the 2006 YearlyKos Convention. Ms. Lowery's appearance of the 2006 Kos Convention was described by Adam Cohen of The New York Times , who noted that "it shows that a 15-year-old with video software and Internet access can now create and disseminate a professional-quality political ad." [5]
Lowery conceived and organized the "16 Candles for Soldiers" event. This rally in support of the troops and against the war was held on the steps of the Alabama state capital in Montgomery on October 21, 2006. [1]
Lowery and her activism were profiled at length in the 28 January 2007 edition of the Mobile Press-Register. [6]
In 2009 she completed a feature-length documentary profiling three veterans of the war in Iraq titled FALLOUT: Coming Home from the War in Iraq . In 2013 she won Best Documentary Pitch and Best Doc in the Works at Fusion Film Festival in New York City for her short documentary film Fred: The Town Dog .
Lowery was a homeschooled student from grades 7 through 12. [7] She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Film & Television and sociology in May 2013. She received a masters at Duke University. [8]
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Susan Abigail Sarandon is an American actress and activist. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a SAG Award, and has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and nine Golden Globe Awards. In 2002, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the film industry.
Maureen Brigid Dowd is an American columnist for The New York Times and an author.
Camilo Ernesto Mejía is a Nicaraguan who left the United States Army during the Iraq War on conscientious objector grounds, was convicted of desertion and went on to become an anti-war activist. He is also the son of Carlos Mejia Godoy, Nicaragua songwriter.
Medea Benjamin is an American political activist who was the co-founder of Code Pink with Jodie Evans and others. Along with activist and author Kevin Danaher, she created the fair trade advocacy group Global Exchange. Benjamin was the Green Party candidate in California in 2000 for the United States Senate, receiving the highest raw vote total of any Green Party U.S. Senate candidate. She has contributed to OpEdNews and The Huffington Post.
Coleen Rowley is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota in 2006. She lost the general election to Republican incumbent John Kline. Coleen is well known for testifying concerns regarding the FBI ignoring information of a suspected terrorist during 9/11, which led to a two-year investigation by the Department of Justice.
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist, whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended antiwar protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch—a stand that drew both passionate support and criticism. Sheehan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She was a vocal critic of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. Her memoir, Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism, was published in 2006. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Sheehan continued to hold her critical views towards George W. Bush, while also criticizing the militarism of Donald Trump.
Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) is a United States-based organization founded in January 2005 by individuals who lost family members in the Iraq War, and are thus entitled to display a Gold Star. It is considered an offshoot of Military Families Speak Out. Gold Star Families for Peace now includes more than 65 families of troops killed in Iraq.
Veterans for Peace is an organization founded in 1985. Initially made up of US military veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, and as well as peacetime veterans and non-veterans, it has since spread overseas and has an active offshoot in the United Kingdom. The group works to promote alternatives to war.
Camp Casey was the name given to the encampment of anti-war protesters outside the Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas during US President George W. Bush's five-week summer vacation there in 2005, named after Iraq War casualty US Army Specialist Casey Sheehan.
Joseph Echols Lowery was an American minister in the United Methodist Church and leader in the civil rights movement. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr. and others, serving as its vice president, later chairman of the board, and from 1977 to 1997 its president. Lowery participated in most of the major activities of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued his civil rights work into the 21st century. He was called the "Dean of the Civil Rights Movement."
The Bring Them Home Now Tour was a rolling anti-war protest against the Iraq War in the United States, beginning in Crawford, Texas, travelling three routes across the country and culminating in a rally in Washington, D.C. in September 2005. The tour was organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and Veterans For Peace. It was inspired by and featured Cindy Sheehan as a speaker at many rallies. The three tour buses were purchased with donated money.
Mary Ann Wright is a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
Frances Crowe was an American peace activist and pacifist from the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
Virginia Foster Durr was an American civil rights activist and lobbyist. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1903 to Dr. Sterling Foster, an Alabama Presbyterian minister, and Ann Patterson Foster. At 22 she married lawyer Clifford Durr, with whom she had 5 children, one of whom died in infancy. Durr was a close friend of Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was sister-in-law of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who sat on many crucial civil rights cases. Her circle of friends extended to Alger Hiss. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 2006.
Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and, until the campaign closed in 2020, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars.
Arlington West: The Film is a 2006 documentary about the Iraq War by Peter Dudar and Sally Marr. The title refers to Arlington West, the "temporary cemeteries" in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California which serve as memorials to those who have been killed in Iraq.
Eve Tetaz is a retired American public school teacher and peace and justice activist from Washington, DC. Tetaz was arrested 11 times in 2007 for nonviolent civil resistance during protests against the war and occupation of Iraq. She has been arrested approximately a dozen times between 2008 and early 2010.
Joanne Bland is the co-founder and former director of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, Alabama. Bland was a highly active participant in the Civil Rights Movement from her earliest days, and was the youngest person to have been jailed during any civil rights demonstration during that period. Bland grew up in segregated Selma, Alabama, where she was not allowed to enter certain stores and was only allowed to go in the library and movie theater on days labeled "colored." As a result of growing up in segregation Bland lost her mother, who died in a "white" hospital waiting for a transfusion of "black blood." Her grandmother encouraged Bland and her sister to march and become a freedom fighter to fight for their freedom, even though her father disapproved due to his fear for their lives. Her father's objections did not stop Bland, who became active in the movement when she was eight years old. When she was eight years old, she attended a meeting with the Dallas County Voters League with her grandmother.
Selma is a 2014 historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Paul Webb. It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches initiated and directed by James Bevel and led by Martin Luther King Jr., Hosea Williams, and John Lewis. The film stars actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and Common as Bevel.