Nancy G. Brinker ignited the global breast cancer movement 27 years ago by promising her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died at age 36 of the disease, that she would put an end to the shame, pain, fear and hopelessness caused by breast cancer.

In 1982, Ambassador Brinker with a handful of dedicated friends founded Susan G. Komen for the Cure® in her sister’s memory. At that time, there was an enormous stigma around breast cancer—newspaper editors told her they would not print the words “breast cancer,” no one talked openly about the disease, and there were few, if any, support groups. Few treatment options existed for breast cancer patients and hardly any researchers focused on the disease. Within a few years, Ambassador Brinker, who led a relentless, one-woman breast cancer information and awareness campaign, succeeded in breaching the silence surrounding the disease, fundamentally changing the way it is talked about and treated. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is now the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives...