Dorothy Day, born on this day in 1897, was an anarchist activist who founded the Catholic Worker movement. “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”
The Catholic Worker movement, founded by Day and her partner Peter Maurin, started with the publication of the first issue of the Catholic Worker on May 1st, 1933.
The paper was priced at one cent, and published continuously since then. It was aimed at those suffering the most in the depths of the Great Depression, “those who think there is no hope for the future”, and announced to them that “the Catholic Church has a social program…there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual but for their material welfare.” It accepted no advertising and did not pay its staff.
Like many newspapers of the day, including those for which Day had already been writing, the Catholic Worker was an unapologetic example of advocacy journalism. It provided coverage of strikes, explored working conditions, especially of women and black workers, and explicated papal teaching on social issues.
Its viewpoint was partisan and stories were designed to move its readers to take action locally, for example, by patronizing laundries recommended by the Laundry Workers’ Union. Its advocacy of federal child labor laws put it at odds with the American Church hierarchy from its first issue.
Day’s activism continued throughout the rest of her life, resulting in multiple arrests. In the summer of 1973, she joined César Chávez in his campaign for farm laborers in the fields of California and was arrested at the age of 75 for defying an injunction against picketing, spending ten days in jail.
“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”
- Dorothy Day
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