- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWhina Josephine Te Wake
- Nickname
- Whaea O Te Motu
- Whina Cooper was born on December 9, 1895 in Te Karaka, New Zealand. She was married to William Cooper and Richard Gilbert. She died on March 26, 1994 in Hokianga, New Zealand.
- SpousesWilliam Cooper(1941 - 1949) (his death, 4 children)Richard Gilbert(1916 - 1935) (his death, 2 children)
- She was awarded the M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1953 Queen's Honours List; awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1973 Queen's Honours List; awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980 Queen's Honours List; and awarded the Member of the Order of New Zealand in the 1991 Queen's Honours List for her services to New Zealand.
- She was the Founding president of Maori Women's Welfare League from 1951 to 1957 and New Zealand President of Maori Land Rights from 1975 to 1994.
- She had a son and a daughter from her first marriage to Richard Gilbert. She had two sons and two daughters from her second marriage to William Cooper.
- She was born the mud floor of a cook house in the Hokianga region of New Zealand's far north that remains one of the country's poorest today.
- She achieved nationwide fame seven decades later, in her 80th year when, crippled with arthritis, she led 5,000 people on a 700-mile march from her Northland home to Parliament in Wellington, to highlight the fact that Europeans had seized all but 2.5 million acres of New Zealand's 66 million acres of land in 135 years of British colonization.
- On being awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980: They didn't understand that I'd have more power when I'd been invested, more power to fight for them and for all the Maori people against the government.
- I should have been a boy because I love men's conversation - I'm not interested in fashion and all that. All men the King, the Governor, the big chiefs they all come out of a woman. Without women they wouldn't even be alive.
- Before I close my eyes, to see our Maori people understand the two races in New Zealand will love that's what you want, that love between two people.
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