“We need [...] to mobilize all women to establish a new and peaceful world for the 21st Century. It can be done. Young, intelligent, hard-working politicians can do it.”
Our Quote of the Week is a rallying cry for International Women’s Day 2025. Following this year’s theme of #AccelerateAction, we share Sargent Shriver’s call for women to organize and lead, for the purposes of creating a more peaceful world.
This week, we’re focusing on Sargent Shriver’s Address to the Northern Montgomery County Women’s Democratic Club. It is a short speech in which he highlights the importance of public service for the Democratic women of Montgomery County in his home state of Maryland. Delivered on the cusp of the 21st century, Shriver presents a bold vision for the US, as a leader capable of creating a more stable, equitable, peaceful society.
“From our position of worldwide, military, economic, and social leadership, we can make the 21st Century into the most peaceful, the most progressive, the most humanistic century in world history. No more war.”
Twenty-seven years have passed since Sargent Shriver spoke these words, and we seem to be drifting further and further away from this vision of the “most peaceful, most progressive, most humanistic century.” In this moment, we join Sargent Shriver in calling on women to mobilize and lead, in politics, in our communities, in our board rooms, corporations, and newsrooms, to challenge a status quo that is drifting ever more towards division, isolation, and conflict.
Like this quote? Read the speech and subscribe to receive our Quote of the Week by email.
