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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  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Gonna be 10F this week and my landlord still hasn't fixed the heat

    :mao-wtf:

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Do you have like a by-law for that or something under your states health laws? You can't live like that, hope you can get a lawyer to get that shit sorted.

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Thanks, yeah it's fucked. We're out in a really rural area so there's a big wait list for the one hvac company around here. Leech said that the heat worked when we moved in, but jokes on me for not crawling under the house to check the nonfunctional and massively out of code heater until a month ago I guess. At least I'm off the hook for rent (and fingers crossed electric) for at least a month and have everything documented to get lawyers involved if need be. Too bad this is a mom-and-pop landlord situation, don't have any other tenants to unionize with

        We'll be ok at least, we've got some heaters and can drive an hour to stay with family if it gets that bad

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yup, got a space heater, sealed up the windows, and have some pvc pipes lying around to make a makeshift tent over the bed if it gets that bad. We nominally pay for the electric but I'm withholding rent until the heat is working and going to try to make the landleech cover that