graduationspeaker

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Will Speak At December Graduation at Winthrop

Dec. 1, 2000

ROCK HILL – Peace activist Betty Williams will bring her message of saving the world’s children to Winthrop University on Dec. 16.

Williams will serve as the featured speaker at the university’s fall commencement exercises at 11 a.m. at the Winthrop Coliseum. Nearly 320 undergraduates and 100 graduate students will receive their degrees during the ceremony.

In August 1976, Williams witnessed the death of a young republican and three children when a car driven by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist went out of control after being fired on by British troops. Soon afterwards, Williams began publicly demonstrating for peace in Northern Ireland, joining forces with Mairead Corrigan, the aunt of the slain children.

The two created the Community of Peace People, a movement of Catholics and Protestants dedicated to ending the fighting in Northern Ireland. For their work, they were awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize.

Williams spoke of her fellow countrymen’s frustration and desire for peace in her Nobel acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway in December 1977.

“The deaths of those four young people in one terrible moment of violence caused that frustration to explode, and create the possibility of a real peace movement,” Williams said. “Perhaps it was the sheer needlessness of this awful loss of life that motivated people to turn out in protesting thousands that week …We are for life and creation, and we are against war and destruction, and in our rage that terrible week, we screamed that the violence had to stop.”

Since receiving this award more than two decades ago, Williams has traveled extensively, working with fellow Nobel Laureates in trouble spots throughout the world where the cause of peace, and especially the safety and well being of children, is at risk.

Williams moved from her native Northern Ireland to the United States in 1981, continuing her quest for the betterment of children. Her efforts have resulted in many recognitions and honors, including the People’s Peace Prize of Norway, the Schweitzer Medallion for Courage, the Martin Luther King Jr. Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award and the Frank Foundation Child Care International Oliver Award.

In 1992, Governor Ann Richards of Texas appointed Williams to the Texas Commission for Children and Youth. In 1995, she was awarded the Rotary Club International “Paul Harris Fellowship.”

Presently, Williams serves as president of World Centers of Compassion for Children, an organization committed to providing children with a strong political voice. Williams has heard the testimonies of children around the world who have courageously expressed the needs and concerns of peers living in harsh conditions brought on by famine, poverty and war. To assist these children, the WCCC seeks to address the United Nations General Assembly on a regular basis and establish a system with the United Nations Court of Human Rights for children’s voices to be heard.

In addition to her work with the WCCC, Williams is chair of the Institute for Asian Democracy in Washington, D.C., and a visiting distinguished scholar at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla. She resides in Boynton Beach, Fla.