Mighty Be Our Powers

Defy a dictator. Unite your people. End a war.

As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that tore apart her life and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Years of fighting destroyed her country - and shattered Gbowee's girlhood hopes and dreams. As a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action, propelled by her realisation that it is women who suffer most during conflicts - and that the power of women working together can create an unstoppable force.

In 2003, Gbowee helped organise and then led the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Chrisand Muslim women who sat in public protest, confronting Liberia's ruthless president and rebel warlords, and even held a sex strike. Mighty Be Our Powers is a gripping chronicle of Gbowee's journey from hopelessness to empowerment and how, together with the women of Liberia, she delivered peace to a nation.

'Mighty Be Our Powers reminds us that even in the worst of times, humanity's best can shine through' -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

About the Author

Leymah Gbowee is the Daily Beast's Africa columnist and executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, in Ghana. She is a founding member and former coordinator of the Women in Peace program/West African Network for Peace program. She served as the commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truch and Reconcilliation Commission. In 2007, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government honored Ms. Gbowee with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award. In 2009, Gbowee and the women of Liberia were awarded the Profiles in Courage Award by the Kennedy Library Foundation. Gbowee is based in Ghana, and is a single mother of six.