By Mary Hanson Harrison, WILPF US past president
“The greatest threat to peace is the barrage of rightist propaganda portraying war as decent, honorable, and patriotic.” -Jeannette Rankin
On May 2, 2026, WILPF US Lifetime Member Florence “Flo” Chessin will receive the Pat and Carol Leadership Award for her lifelong support for the Democratic Party and her community peace building. Her outspoken pacifism was also recognized twenty years ago when she received the first Jeannette Rankin Peace Center’s Peacemaker Award. Flo co-founded Missoula Women for Peace (1970), an affiliate of WILPF US (1964), and founded the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center in 1986.
To put all the difficulty of her peace work into some perspective, the last time Montanans voted for a Democratic president was Clinton in 1992; before that, LBJ in 1964—although, showing some hope, they faithfully voted for FDR/Truman (1932-1948). Montana has a strong independent streak but, like Iowa, suffers from present-day strong national winds of fear.
However, Montana is also the land of Missoula-born Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the US Congress, who then voted against entering World War I. During her second term in Congress, she was the only one to vote against entering World War II. Don’t forget, Rankin was a Republican (perhaps that should be in quotation marks). She was also a long-standing WILPF US member and, along with Jane Addams, helped form the ACLU and later served as vice president.
Flo has often said that one of her most significant achievements was leading the successful effort to have a bronze statue of Jeanette Rankin placed in the Halls of Congress in 1985. Today, the statue stands in the United States Statuary Hall, inscribed with Rankin’s words: “I cannot vote for war.”
On the invitation to the May 2 event, which she is sharing with keynote speaker, Jim Ascota, former CNN Senior White House Correspondent, there’s a statement that sums up the humanity and forceful compassion of the Chessin family: “Flo and Mike’s house on University Avenue became known as the place to launch campaigns for peace, political campaigns and the best spot to cheer during the Homecoming Parade as the Missoula Democrats’ float went by.” Not too bad for a red state.
Flo turned 100 in January.