November 8 - Dorothy Day is Born

 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1897. That was the day that Dorothy Day, a leader of the Catholic Worker Movement, was born in Brooklyn, New York.

 

As a young girl her family moved to San Francisco. Her father lost his job as a sportswriter due to the devastating earthquake of 1906, and the family relocated again to Chicago. 

 

In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, and together they founded the Catholic Worker Movement, a faith-based social justice effort. The Catholic Workers opened what they called houses of hospitality to serve those in need. 

 

Dorothy also helped co-found the Catholic Worker, a monthly newspaper that became a voice for poor and working people. While writing for the paper, Dorothy traveled and visited with some of the most exploited workers in the country. 

 

She talked with migrant agricultural workers in California, and was arrested for supporting the United Farm Workers in 1973.  In 1940, she visited the Hooverville encampment in Seattle, Washington. 

 

Dorothy’s reporting vividly demonstrated how her faith informed her activism. 

 

She wrote, “The rain poured down.  Underneath was mud, ankle deep, and the long lane that cut between the rows of shacks reflected the grey clouds in its pools… But Christ is there, I thought sadly, there in the mud, in the shacks with His poor. With them he is trying to find a place to lay His head. With them, He hungers and with them He suffers fatigue of body and soul. “Behold, Oh God, our Redeemer, and look upon the face of Thy Christ ,” there in the dumps, among the creatures who still are men. Have pity on them, and on us, who permit such things to be.”