Nobel Peace Prize winner to speak at Cedar Crest

As part of Cedar Crest College's Reimert Lecture Series, at 7 p.m. Monday in the Samuels Theater, Leymah Gbowee, a 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate, will discuss her life in Liberia during the war and how she unified brave Muslim and Christian women across the country, mobilizing them through peaceful public protests, and even a sex strike, in order to end the bloodshed in 2003.

Their efforts resulted in the exile of President Charles Taylor and the ushering in of the country's first female president.

Gbowee chronicled her personal struggle, and that of her country, in the book "Mighty Be Our Powers," and was featured in the PBS documentary "Pray the Devil Back to Hell."

Last fall the book was selected as the college's shared read for first-year students and the entire campus, and was extensively discussed.

"Leymah Gbowee is the type of strong-minded, independently thinking woman that we work to cultivate at our college," said college President Carmen Twillie Ambar. "I am excited to have her visit our campus ... I know she will inspire everyone who attends her lecture and teach us how together we can achieve the unimaginable."

Gbowee is founder and president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. She also founded the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative and is co-founder and former executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa. For more information, go to http://leymahgbowee.com.

The lecture is free, but online reservations must be made in advance as seating is limited.

For reservations go to http://www.cedarcrest.edu/ca/reimert/gbowee.shtm.