Dorothy Day: Peace & Anarchy

Dorothy Day held a terminal belief that no matter one’s politics or religion, they should always be built around empathy and compassion. Pretty much from the get-go this was how she lived her 83 years. Born in 1897, her curious and happily rebellious streak first took the form of civil disobedience in her teens. She hung around the socialist and anarchist crowds in college and began writing for several left-wing publications. She took part in the famously non-violent suffragist Silent Sentinels protests, a two-year long vigil for women’s rights, held outside the White House occupied at the time by Woodrow Wilson.  

  “We most talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it,” she once said. In her late 20s, she converted to Catholicism. In collaboration with a close confidant and religious mentor, Peter Maurin, they created The Catholic Worker in 1933, a religious paper that emphasized selflessness and compassion. They called themselves “a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.” These ideas quickly became a movement across the country – called the Catholic Worker Movement, fittingly – many churches committing to the practice of generosity and social activism.  

  Day’s been gone for almost 4 decades now, but her dogged belief in being a helpful person (and enjoying it) continues. The movement still exists, and activists of every stripe and faith keep showing us the road where being good is easy. For related pieces on activism within religious communities, read Chance the Rapper’s interview on Teen Vogue, or our piece on Christian mother and activist, DL Mayfield.