An Interview With Cartoonist Ann Cleaves

When I attended the Association of American Editorial Cartoonist convention in 2010 in Portland, I met many of the best political cartoonists in the country. One wonderful cartoonist that I met was Ann Cleaves, a cartoonist based in Southern California. I am a big fan of Ann’s gentle satirical take on the nation’s politics and popular culture. She has one of the most interesting biographies of anyone that I know. Ann is a graduate of Brown University, and she also studied art at Rhode Island School of Design, The Art Institute in San Miguel Allende, Mexico, and the University of Houston. Ann Cleaves began cartooning as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia. As a volunteer in Fiji she illustrated schoolbooks for the Fiji Ministry of Education. She taught art in the Boston public schools, and cartooning courses in Texas. She also taught high school subjects in the adult division of the Los Angeles School District from 1988 to 2004. Ann and her husband Courtland live in Los Angeles.

Hi Ann. I’m honored that you’re doing this interview. Tell us a little of your background. What are some of your early influences that have shaped your point of view?

Along with art, I have always been interested in U.S. history and our society. I grew up in the ‘50s and early ‘60s in Lexington, MA. and loved to swim in nearby Walden Pond. Thoreau and friends, and history seemed very alive to me. One of my great grandmothers had traveled north to NH from Kentucky with her family in Civil War times. Her son, my grandfather grew up in New York City and told me many stories about family and US history, mostly true. My other grandparents all came from Scotland and England right before World War I. Courtesy of the British Empire, many of my relatives traveled and even settled through out the world.

Growing up I liked Pogo, Dr. Seuss, Tom and Jerry and Disney classics, but I was not particularly interested in political cartoons. I did spend four summers at an urban/suburban interracial church camp founded during the Depression. During college in the 1960s, curious about civil rights, I spent a semester (1965) at Tougaloo College near Jackson, Mississippi. Later I taught in a summer program on the South Side of Chicago. Readjusting to mainstream American society proved difficult. I had no idea what to do when I graduated from college. So, I joined an ice show – traveling with Holiday on Ice for a year throughout the US, and in Brazil and Argentina. Best job I ever had, with cartooning a very close second.

Ann, you’ve traveled to a variety of places. I read in your AAEC webpage that you started cartooning in Liberia when you were in the Peace Corps. How were those experiences for you? How did these experiences influence your political cartoons today?

After getting married and spending time in Mexico, my husband and I joined the Peace Corps and served in both Liberia and Fiji.

In Liberia I fell in love with the people in Jorwah, the small village where we worked and lived, and drew cartoons about our lives. When not teaching in the local elementary school I spent hours leafing through a pile of old issues of the New Yorker scrounged from a yard sale at the American International School in Monrovia – enjoying the cartoons and imaging life in the big city. In Fiji I helped illustrate schoolbooks as well as taught art at Suva’s Mahatma Gandhi High School.

Back in the US we settled in Houston. I dreamed my first editorial cartoon while I was attending art classes (stone lithography in honor of Daumier, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Redon) at University of Houston. I dreamed a lovely silvery Christmas card. Looking at it closely – it was Kissinger and little silver planes dropping bombs on Vietnam.

My strongest influence and aggravation when I started cartooning was Ronald Reagan. My first published cartoons were in the Temple Daily Telegram in Texas – one cartoon concerned a local bond election. I also did a series of cartoons documenting the weekly battles between local high school football teams.

Since then I have continued to draw cartoons. My first AAEC convention was in Seattle in 1990 with Horsey, Greenberg and Beattie as hosts – a very elegant and inspiring event. Speaker of the House Tom Foley was the guest speaker at the Saturday banquet.

You have this wonderful whimsical art style that I really enjoy. What has been the big influence on your cartoons? Who are your favorite cartoonists?

I have been inspired by a lot of cartoonists/artists (Thurber, Steig, Booth, Arnold Roth, Etta Hulme, Stayskal, Conrad, Magritte, Matisse, Miro, cartoonists from the magazine The Masses, and the artists of the ‘Ash Can’ school) but my style is simply mine.

You’re a fellow Californian. Here in northern California, I am contributing fairly liberal cartoons in a population dominated by people to the left of the political spectrum. Your cartoons seem to lean in a liberal direction. What is it like in the southern Californian newspapers that you are published in?

Not everyone in southern California is conservative. However, Many people today seem to forget that most daily papers have in general been conservative, including the cartoons. Also, the main stream media has been spectacularly good, in hindsight, at forgetting how inaccurate they often are about what is actually going on in the world.

What have you most enjoyed about doing political cartoons?

Thinking about what is going on in the world and trying to visual the issues. Best part – finishing the cartoons and sending them off into the world.

Do you think political cartoons in America still have influence?

Individual cartoonists perhaps – and that was probably true in the past too. Who remembers Nast’s contemporaries, or Daumier’s?

As a southern Californian, what would you recommend to a person who is visiting the area for the first time

That is difficult as there is such an amazing diversity of people, cultures, architecture, and nature here – plus a surprising amount of history. It is fascinating part of the world.

Here are more interviews that I did for Everyday Citizen

An Interview With Muslim American Activist Zahra Billoo
An Interview With Cartoonist Monte Wolverton
An Interview With Cartoonist Adam Zyglis
An Interview With Reverand Gerald Britt
An Interview With Cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards
An Interview With Poet, Activist, and Teacher Diane Wahto
An Interview With Cartoonist Jesse Springer
An Interview With Cartoonist Steve Greenberg
An Interview With Eric Wilks
An Interview With Cartoonist Greg Beda
An Interview With Poet Melissa Tuckey
An Interview With Cartoonist Andy Singer
An Interview With Author Robert Balmanno
An Interview With Cartoonist J.P. Jasper
An Interview With Cartoonist David Cohen
An Interview that Everyday blogger Diane Wahto kindly did of me

An Interview With Democrat Nancy Hirstein

The Democratic Club of Sunnyvale was formed over a year ago for Democrats in Sunnyvale, California and the neighboring region to promote Democratic values. I attended a few meetings last year and found the group to be dedicated to using the political process to fight for local environmental, labor and economic fairness issues. They’re a nice group of people. One of the individuals whom I met was Nancy Hirstein Smith. Nancy is the founder of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale and has been heavily involved in campaign and voter registration efforts.

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Thanks, Angelo! It’s an honor to be invited to answer questions about myself and the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale. Before I start answering your questions, I wanted to brag that our club has been growing steadily since its first meeting in May 2009. It’s hard to believe we’ve already been in existence three years!

You were one of the founding members of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale. How did the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale come into being?

When I became active in local party politics, I noticed that our area has a lot of dedicated Democrats and a lot of active clubs, but I had to drive 20 minutes to get to most of the meetings. Many groups were concentrated in San Jose or further north in Palo Alto. There was a great club that meets in our neighboring city, Santa Clara, but they are what is known as an issues club and are not focused on local Sunnyvale candidates and concerns. Sunnyvale is the second largest city in Santa Clara County and I began to feel more and more strongly that the progressive Democrats in Sunnyvale needed an organization just for them. At the Regional delegate elections in January 2009, I recruited five other Sunnyvale residents and we formed a core team that came up with the bylaws and mission statement for a so-called geographic club. In May 2009, we held our first meeting, signed up more than 20 members, and by September 2009 were officially chartered by the California Democratic Party!

How did you become a Democrat? Was there a particular person, book or historical figure that influenced your political outlook?

I took a journalism class at the fundamentalist Christian college I attended. For one of my assignments, I did a story about how students would register to vote and then vote straight-ticket Republican without any understanding of local issues or candidates. To prepare for the story, I searched hard to find Democrats to interview among all the Republicans at the school. When I found Tony, an aide to the area’s state senator, he recruited me to gather signatures for delegates to the National Democratic Convention in 1984. Imagine my surprise to find my name on the petition as a delegate!

Tony and I went on a few dates, but it didn’t work out. He was an intense person and soon became embroiled in a scandal related to the story I did about voter registration. After Tony wrote, copied and distributed fliers in the campus dormitories that scolded students for not voting conscientiously, the local paper (not just the campus paper) wrote an exposé about how Tony used state resources to copy those fliers

For quite a few years after that, I adopted a political stance of “journalistic objectivity.” I still remember Tony fondly for shoving me in the deep end of the political pool. My name made it on the ballot even though my candidate, George McGovern, dropped out early in the race. The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s people hounded me for months to pledge for Rev. Jackson instead. At this conservative college, I flaunted my liberalism: I wore a black leather jacket and put a “Vote Democratic” poster up in my dorm room window. It was all very exciting.

The journalistic objectivity didn’t stick. Being a chameleon and trying to blend in means you cannot debate issues and influence others. As I mature, I am becoming more and more comfortable expressing what I really think about issues, even if I still can’t quite shake the softer touch.

When I attended your meetings last year, we were able to meet many Democratic politicians in the Sunnyvale City Council and in many state offices. How has it been to meet these various officeholders? Do you think the club has influenced these officeholders?

I’ve been involved in Sunnyvale politics for a while, so I already knew all the Sunnyvale City Council members when the club started. I’ve also known some of the County Supervisors and Assemblymembers.

Our club started in 2009, the year after a presidential election. Not only is 2012 a Presidential election year, it’s also the first election after redistricting. I’ve recently had the honor of meeting or deepening acquaintances with several fine Democratic candidates for State Assembly, State Senate, and Congress.

There is a protocol for inviting candidates and presenting them to your club members. When you first invite them, you want to be very clear about what will happen at the meetings, what the format will be, who goes first, and how much time they have to present themselves. The process needs to be fair to all candidates, as much as you can possibly control. Even though there are often more candidates for local city council seats than for higher office, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less work to plan forums or debates for higher offices.

My impression is that, the higher the office, the more politically savvy the candidate. The more they know about how debates and forums work, the more challenging it is to meet their needs. It’s been a thrill to get to know them all, no matter what level of office they are pursuing.

For local candidates, it’s especially helpful that our club fills out response forms for them when they answer questions for our club. One candidate, who did not quite get our club’s endorsement, felt a lot better after she read some very positive responses in her candidate evaluation forms. Candidates for higher office really appreciate having a Democratic club in Sunnyvale, a group of people they know will be sympathetic to their positions. We met some grateful candidates after redistricting changed all the boundaries. Sunnyvale was affected in that we got new representatives for our state assembly, state senate, and congressional districts. All Democratic candidates for these seats have visited our club meetings at least once in the 2012 election cycle.

The Democratic Party is far more diverse than the Republicans, with moderates, liberals, progressives, all under one tent. How do you think the majority of the club members lean?

Funny story. When we set up our vision statement and guiding principles in 2009, we claimed that “We are an active and welcoming group that promotes progressive, Democratic values and positions.” Before May of 2012, I would have said that our members tend to be quite progressive. However, it turned out that one of our regular attendees was a registered Republican. We discovered it after we elected him president and he got a bit more scrutiny! When I reported this kerfuffle to the Democratic party chairman in our county, I joked that we are maybe a bit too welcoming.

Our meetings are open to anyone, unless we are holding a vote to endorse candidates in a race. We have invited several Republicans to take part in talks of general interest to the community. However, we never intended to let any of them claim membership.

The Republican almost-president in question offered to register as a Democrat and will soon have a seat on our board, so this story has a happy ending.

What are some things that the Democratic Club has done to promote its values and get them translated into political action? What are some issues that are important to the members of the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale?

In the winter of 2011, we spent a lot of time as a club defining what we value. To me, the results were somewhat surprising because they aren’t necessarily things the people would think differentiate Democrats from non-Democrats. The top five things our club members value are community, participatory democracy, compassion, pragmatism, and patriotism. We intentionally measure our monthly programs, the candidates and propositions we endorse, the people we elect to leadership positions within the club and the projects we undertake against these criteria.

In the winter and spring of 2012, we made a big push to became a more active, rather than have lectures at every meeting. We recruited leaders from the club to head up committees. After three years as president, I wanted to let someone else lead the group. We have been working with an organizational development expert — who offered her services to the Democratic Party — to make the transition a smooth and successful one. She’s giving us a lot of great advice about how to recruit good people, act from our core values, and clarify our guiding principals.

We had to take several steps back and restructure the club. I’m confident that we’ll emerge a stronger club that focuses on recruiting and electing qualified Democratic candidates.

What are some unique things about being a Democrat in the middle of Silicon Valley? Are they more interested in environmental issues, economic issues or social issues?

One exciting thing about Silicon Valley is its engineers. There are many very smart, analytical people in our club. When we discuss issues during a meeting and the exchange of ideas gets a bit lively, listening to the rational arguments of the engineers in our club gives me deeper insights into ideas like environmental conservation, transparency in government, ranked-choice voting, and campaign finance disclosures.

As the 2012 elections loom, what are your thoughts on important state and national issues that may be on the 2012 ballot?

The biggest concern to me now are the ginormous, democracy-killing concentrations of wealth. One of the biggest threats to our democracy is the growing wealth divide. Unless we take steps now, wealth will continue to be concentrated among the wealthiest 1% and we’ll see no more of our middle class and our hard-fought meritocracy.

Also, I hope we can do something about the Citizens United travesty. It is outrageous that faceless corporations have more rights than individuals.

What’s your opinion on President Obama’s first term?

I think the continuing drags on the economy and the nasty divisiveness in Congress have kept President Obama from making as much progress as I would like to see on some items on his agenda. The President’s records on privacy issues and net neutrality isn’t as strong as I’d like to see. I wish he would have come down a lot harder on AT&T after their snooping scandal broke just before he took office.

While he didn’t pursue the torturers, the scammers in the banking near-collapse or the invaders of privacy, he did take up several causes I support. He’s standing up for equal pay for women, keeping the estate tax, marriage equality, and healthcare for all.
I’m quite sure Mitt Romney doesn’t share my values, so I’ll throw all the support I can to reelecting President Obama.

In the past year, the Occupy Wall Street protests have sprouted throughout the nation, crying out against the growing economic inequalities in our country and pushing for greater accountability of our nation’s financial institutions. How do you think these protests might influence the upcoming elections? Do you think the Occupy message will influence the way Democratic candidates run in local and national elections?

I’ve been involved for 12 years with an organization called United for a Fair Economy. In that time, it’s been very difficult to raise the issues passionately about the evils of concentrated wealth and dynasties that pass untouched through generations by inheritance. Then, along came the Occupy Movement and took their outrage to Wall Street. Suddenly, everyone now knows there is an issue, even though many don’t know all the nuances and actual craziness that’s going on. I hope people continue to educate themselves, keep up their energy, recruit sympathetic and viable candidates, and vote. It’s the best way to make some changes. It’s the only way to make changes.

A big benefit of being in a club is just meeting people who share the same values and forming friendships with those people. Three years into the club’s existence, how has it been to see the club grow and evolve? What are some future plans for the Democratic Club of Sunnyvale?
The next big step is for me to hand over the reins to another president and take a role as an adviser. I would be delighted to see something I helped create continue on after I’m no longer its leader. I’ve made a lot of great friends in the club and look forward to many years of working together with them on current and upcoming progressive causes. This sounds like a cliché, but finding like-minded friends get so much harder after your twenties. Political organizations are a great way to meet people and make friends. It’s like a bulwark against the chaos to have people you can join with to make change possible.

Here are more interviews that I did for Everyday Citizen

An Interview With Cartoonist Ann Cleaves
An Interview With Muslim American Activist Zahra Billoo
An Interview With Cartoonist Monte Wolverton
An Interview With Cartoonist Adam Zyglis
An Interview With Reverand Gerald Britt
An Interview With Cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards
An Interview With Poet, Activist, and Teacher Diane Wahto
An Interview With Cartoonist Jesse Springer
An Interview With Cartoonist Steve Greenberg
An Interview With Eric Wilks
An Interview With Cartoonist Greg Beda
An Interview With Poet Melissa Tuckey
An Interview With Cartoonist Andy Singer
An Interview With Author Robert Balmanno
An Interview With Cartoonist J.P. Jasper
An Interview With Cartoonist David Cohen
An Interview that Everyday blogger Diane Wahto kindly did of me

Youtube videos of former California Assemblyman Sally Lieber talking about getting legislation through the California Legislature. Nancy Hirstein Smith introduces Sally Lieber.

Even More Christian Women for Social Justice

Here is a short list of some individual Christian women who have worked for social justice. Most of these Christian women, though not all, represent a more progressive, social activist type of Christianity. Like today’s Leadership Conference of Women Religious, many of these strong Christian women clashed with their church hierarchy in their fight for social justice.

Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and social reformer. Here is a youtube video of Lucretia Mott

Anna Howard Shaw was an American suffragist, the first woman minister of the Methodist Church, a physician and served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Here is a youtube video of the Anna Howard Shaw Foundation

Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth spoke about abolition, women’s rights, prison reform, and preached to the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. Here is a youtube video of Sojourner Truth

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. After the war she set up rehabilitation centers to help concentration camp survivors and shelter the jobless Dutch who previously collaborated with Germans. Here is a youtube video of Corrie Ten Boom

Jane Addams was a Presbyterian, the founder of Hull House in Chicago, a sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. She was national chairperson of the Woman’s Peace Party, president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and one of the cofounders of the NAACP. Here is a youtube video of Jane Addams

Dorothy Day was a devout Catholic and Christian anarchist who established the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that combined helping the poor and social activism.

Pauli Murray was a civil rights and women’s rights activist, lawyer, and the first black woman ordained as an Episcopalian priest. Here is a youtube video of Pauli Murray

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. The Missionaries of Charity served in hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counselling programmes, orphanages and schools. Here is a youtube video of Mother Teresa

Coretta Scott King was a leader of the struggle for racial equality, the anti-apartheid movment, and women’s equality. King also was a strong advocate for the Peace Movement and for LGBT equality.

More Christian Women for Social Justice and Gender Equality

Here are more Christian women fighting for social justice and women’s rights that I discovered:

The Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (also known as the Christian Feminism Today, or EEWC-CFT) is a Christian feminist organization founded in 1973 who believe that the Bible supports the equality of the sexes in the Christian Church. EEWC welcomes members of any gender, race, ethnicity, color, creed, marital status, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, political party, parental status, economic class, or disability. Their facebook page is here

A vimeo video on a Waneta Dawn discussion of domestic abuse in the church for the Seneca Falls 2 Evangelical Women’s Rights Convention, July 24, 2010

Submission Abuse and Domestic Violence ~ Waneta Dawn from FreeCWC on Vimeo.

A youtube video of Shirley Taylor and Jocelyn Andersen criticizing the Danver Statement, which told Christians to live in rigid sex roles for men and women, in a discussion at the Seneca Falls 2 Evangelical Women’s Rights Convention

A youtube video of Jocelyn Andersen talking about the history of Christian history of supporting women’s rights in the Seneca Falls 2 Evangelical Women’s Rights Convention

Christians for Biblical Equality is a nonprofit Christian organization who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Their facebook page is here

A vimeo video of Christians for Biblical Equality president Dr. Mimi Haddad speaks on “Wisdom from the Early Evangelicals” at Fuller Theological Seminary on January 26, 2012

Why Women’s Leadership in the Church is a Primary Issue: Wisdom from the Early Evangelicals with Mimi Haddad from Fuller Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

A youtube video of Christian women sharing their journey in believing in gender equality

A youtube video of Rev. Dr. Katie Hays–pastor and speaker at the 2012 Conference “A New Creation. A New Tradition. Reclaiming the Biblical Tradition of Man and Woman, One in Christ” in Houston, TX–endorsing Christians for Biblical Equality

Baptist Women For Equality is a group of Baptists who support gender equality in the Baptist Church.

A youtube video of Shirley Taylor criticizing the Counsel on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood statement that “Women are equal, but different.”

Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation UUWF was formed in 1963 through consolidation of the Association of Universalist Women and the Alliance of Unitarian Women. It aims for justice for women and promotes their spiritual growth. Their facebook page is here

Women Advocating for Voice and Equality or WAVE is an organization dedicated to advancing gender equality in the LDS church. Their facebook page is here

The Catholic Network for Women’s Equality has worked since 1981 for equality for women in all aspects of church and society. Their facebook page is here

“Nuns On The Bus” and Christian Women for Social Justice

In the past few months, the big news in the Christian world has been the clash between the Vatican and the American nuns over the issue of social justice. In April, the Vatican reprimanded the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which has challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, for deviating from some aspects of Catholic doctrine. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the United States’ 57,000 nuns, decided they could not accept the Vatican’s verdict, and sent their president and executive director to Rome on June 12 to open a dialogue with Vatican officials. In the meanwhile, several nuns decided to organize a Nuns On The Bus tour around the nation to emphasize their commitment economic justice and to persuade Congress to consider the poor and the struggling middle class when deciding on budget issues. The American nuns are just the latest examples of Christian women who have made great contributions to the great Christian tradition of fighting for social justice for the poor and marginalized in society.

Nuns On The Bus traveled through 9 states on June and July to support the poor and struggling families and to criticize the proposed budget cuts to social programs that Republicans in Congress support. The Nuns on the Bus journey was sponsored by NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and the NETWORK Education Program. In their webiste, the nuns stated their goals:

Every hour of each day, Catholic Sisters stand in solidarity with all who live in poverty, and we confront injustice and systems that cause suffering.

We cannot stand by silently when the U.S. Congress considers further enriching the wealthiest Americans at the expense of struggling, impoverished families.

As part of our campaign for budget fairness we are taking a bus trip. Our bus will travel to places in many states where Sisters actively serve people in need. For they are our best witnesses to the suffering our federal government must not ignore.

We ask all who visit this website to join us in prayer and to support our work to defeat government actions that would add to the suffering of already struggling families.

In their website are details on how the proposed Republican budget would harm the poor:

As Catholic Sisters, we must speak out against the current House Republican budget, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). We do so because it harms people who are already suffering.

The Ryan Budget would:

Raise taxes on 18 million hardworking low-income families while cutting taxes for millionaires and big corporations.

Push the families of 2 million children into poverty.

Kick 8 million people off food stamps and 30 million off health care.

The American Catholic nuns are keeping in the Christian tradition of fighting for the poor and those without a voice in society. They are specifically following spirit of the Papal Encyclicals, like Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Mater et Magistra, Populorum Progressio, and Laborem Exercens. As Populorum Progressio stated over 50 years ago:

The introduction of industry is a necessity for economic growth and human progress; it is also a sign of development and contributes to it. By persistent work and use of his intelligence man gradually wrests nature’s secrets from her and finds a better application for her riches. As his self-mastery increases, he develops a taste for research and discovery, an ability to take a calculated risk, boldness in enterprises, generosity in what he does and a sense of responsibility.

But it is unfortunate that on these new conditions of society a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation. This unchecked liberalism leads to dictatorship rightly denounced by Pius XI as producing “the international imperialism of money”. One cannot condemn such abuses too strongly by solemnly recalling once again that the economy is at the service of man.

Christian women have always been involved in the fight for economic justice. St. Clare, Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Pauli Murray, Corrie Ten Boom, Sojourner Truth and countless Christian women have reached out to help the poor and the marginalized in keeping with the spirit of Jesus’ saying in Matthew 25:31-46:

Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, `Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, `You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, `Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Here are other Christian women’s groups involved in social justice ministry.

The United Methodist Women has approximately 800,000 members and they aim to support spiritual growth, developing leaders and advocating for justice. They have raised up to $20 million each year for programs and projects related to women, children and youth in the United States and in more than 100 countries around the world. You can visit their facebook page here

A youtube video of United Methodist Women at Occupy Wall Street

A youtube video of a United Methodist Women rally for justice

Presbyterian Women in the PC(USA) is the women’s organization of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Numbering around 300,000 members, the Presbyterian Women are committed to prayer and Bible study, mission work of the church worldwide, working for justice and peace, and building an inclusive, caring community of women that strengthens the PC(USA) and witnesses to the promise of God’s kingdom. You can visit their facebook page here. A subgroup of the Presbyterian Women is the The Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns

Youtube videos of the history of the Presbyterian Women

Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America work to combat commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking and support families with special needs. They also advocate for racial and cultural equity through anti-racism training and cross-cultural programs. Their facebook page is here.

A youtube video of the Women of the ELCA working at a food pantry

A youtube video of the Women of the ELCA quilting ministry

The Episcopal Women’s Caucus was formed on October 30, 1971, as a justice organization dedicated to Gospel values of equality and liberation and committed to the incarnation of God’s unconditional love. Their facebook page is here.

Youtube videos of Nuns on the Bus

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the Fourth of July

On July 4, I’ve always reflected on this country that I call my home. The United States has made many mistakes in the course of its history, but it has also achieved a lot of great things that all Americans should be proud of. I am especially admiring of the history of reform in this country, from the abolitionists to the women’s suffragists to the civil rights activists to the activists working for change today. These reformers have worked to help its country live up to its highest ideas. The Founding Fathers were not perfect, but many of them were also reformers who worked to created a more perfect union. Two of the most celebrated Founding Fathers were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They were best friends and they also were important leaders in the fight to free this country from the British Empire. One of the most fascinating things about Jefferson and Adams is that they both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met in the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. They worked together in various committees, with Adams doing most of the speaking and Jefferson doing a lot of the writing, and they became friends. Their friendship deepened when they served as ambassadors to France and England, as John and Abigail Adams felt Jefferson was part of the family. Those were tough times for Jefferson, as his beloved wife Martha had just died, and the Adams were there to console Jefferson during his time of grieving. Abigail felt Thomas Jefferson was “the only person with whom my companion could associate with perfect freedom and reserve.” Joseph Ellis wrote about them in his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

They were an incongruous pair, but everyone seemed to argue that history had made them into a pair. The incongruities leapt out for all to see: Adams, the short, stout, candid-to-a-fault New Englander; Jefferson, the tall, slender, elegantly elusive Virginian; Adams, the highly combustible, ever combative, mile-a-minute talker, whose favorite form of conversation was an argument; Jefferson, the always cool and self-contained enigma, who regarded debate and argument as violations of the natural harmonies he heard inside his own head. The list could go on – the Yankee and the Cavalier, the orator and the writer, the bulldog and the greyhound. They were the odd couple of the American Revolution.

…There were, to be sure, important political and ideological differences between the two men, differences that became the basis for the opposing sides they took in the party wars of the 1790s. But as soulmates who had lived together through some of the most formative events of the revolutionary era and of their own lives, Adams and Jefferson bonded at a personal and emotional level that defied their merely philosophical differences. They were charter members of the “band of brothers” who had shared the agonies and ecstasies of 1776 as colleagues. No subsequent disagreement could shake this elemental affinity. They knew, trusted, even loved each other for reasons that required no explanation.

During the 1790s, their political differences led to a rift between the Republican Jefferson and the Federalist Adams that last for over a decade. They finally reconciled after Jefferson left the Presidency, thanks to the efforts of their mutual friend, Benjamin Rush. In their last years, they maintained a wonderful correspondence where they discussed politics, literature, family, and the state of the country that they had such a big part in founding.

When the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, Jefferson and Adams were asked to give a few words to commemorate the special day. John Adams, the more skeptical of the pair, felt that the American experiment was something that always had to be worked on with diligence by its citizens. Adams had less faith in human nature than Jefferson did, and always felt that the checks and balances that were set up in the American government were necessary to reign in the passions that might destroy a republican government. Joseph Ellis summed up Adams view in his book Joseph Ellis wrote about them in his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

For Adams, the American Revolution was still an experiment, a sail into uncharted waters that no other ship of state had ever successfully navigated. There were no maps or charts to guide a republican government claiming to derive its authority and legitimacy from public opinion, that murky source of sovereignty that could be as choppy and unpredictable as waves on the ocean. He had been a member of the crew on this maiden voyage, even taken his turn at the helm, so he knew as well as anyone, better than most, that they had nearly crashed and sunk on several occasions, had argued bitterly among themselves throughout the 1790s about the proper course. Jefferson seemed to think that, once unmoored from British docks and unburdened of European baggage, the ship would sail itself into the proverbial sunset. Adams thought he knew better, and he also would go to his grave believing that a fully empowered federal government on the Federalist model was a fulfillment, rather than a betrayal, of the course they had set at the start. Without a sanctioned central government to steer the still-fragile American republic, the new crew was certain to founder on that huge rock called slavery, which was lurking dead ahead in the middle distance and even Jefferson acknowledged to be a “breaker”.

With this in mind, Adams gave this equivocal response to the committee of the citizens of Quincy, Massachusetts on 7 June 1826, as a response to their invitation to the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:

My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.

Thomas Jefferson was more optimistic than Adams about the ability of the people to govern themselves in the new American republic. Gordon Woods gave a good description of Jefferson’s outlook in his book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different:

No one of the revolutionary leaders believed more strongly in progress and in the capacity of the American people for self-government than did Jefferson. No one was more convinced that the Enlightenment was on the march against the forces of medieval barbarism and darkness and religious superstition and enthusiasm…

…None of the other major founding fathers was as optimistic and confident of the people as Jefferson was. All the problems of the present, he believed, would eventually be taken care of by the people. This sublime faith in the people and the future is the source of the symbolic power he has had for succeeding generations of Americans. He was never more American than when he told John Adams in 1816 that he liked “the dreams of the future better than the history of the past”.

Thus Jefferson’s commemoration for Independence Day in 1826 offered a more uplifting message than Adams:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government… All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, to let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

A youtube video of a reading of the Declaration of Independence

A youtube video of a scene from HBO’s miniseries “John Adams”, during the making of the Declaration of Independence

A youtube video of a scene from HBO’s miniseries “John Adams”

A youtube video of a lecture on the Declaration of Independence by Professor Freeman for a Yale course

Here are more blogs about the Founding Fathers

Alexander Hamilton and the New York Manumission Society
Benjamin Franklin and His Fight to Abolish Slavery
The Founding Fathers Grapple With Slavery
The Founding Fathers Grapple With Slavery Part 2
Benjamin Banneker, Thomas Jefferson and the Question of Racial Equality
George Washington and the Freeing of His Slaves
The Friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams