Heroes

I’ve always been inspired by heroes. From family members, to close friends, to major figures in books that I’ve read, these heroes have helped shaped my values, my politics, and the way I want to live my life. As I’ve grown older, my parents have become real heroes to me. As a young man, I admired several sports stars, especially Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, for their work ethic and their ability to make their teammates play to their highest level. With this in mind, I thought I’d write a list of my heroes who are either politicians or political activists, people who inspire me and who have shaped my political views.

I’ve met many people who do not believe in heroes. They see flaws in any hero and believe that it’s dangerous to have so much faith in a flawed human being to fight for good causes. It’s never bothered me to know that my heroes have flaws. What makes a hero special to me is that they have the courage to transcend their human weaknesses to do great things that benefit humanity.

So here is my list of my favorite political and activist heroes. Some are radicals. Some are reformers. They have all inspired me. Perhaps a few of them will inspire you. Please feel free to mention your own list of political and activist heroes.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Benjamin Franklin has always been my favorite Founding Father. A genial and good humored man, Franklin seemed like the kind of person that one could enjoy a fun conversation with. A few years ago I read Joseph Ellis’ book Founding Brothers about Franklin’s failed attempt to get Congress to pass legislation to abolish slavery. It reminded me of something that is often overlooked about Benjamin Franklin, his civic activism. Franklin organized the first fire company in America helped formed the first insurance company, which introduced fire insurance, crop insurance, and insurance for widows and orphans. In 1751, Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond established the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in what was to become the United States of America. In the 1780s Ben Franklin was president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and worked to set up schools to educate free African Americans and give them employable skills and to try to pass for legislation to abolish slavery and end the slave trade. While many people become more conservative as they get older, Benjamin Franklin grew more radical as he aged. It’s one of the things I most admire about him.
Recommended books: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis, Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different by Gordon Wood, Not Your Usual Founding Father: Selected Readings from Benjamin Franklin edited by Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin by Gordon Wood.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
I didn’t know much about John Quincy Adams until I read two wonderful books, Arguing about Slavery by William Lee Miller and Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade by Joseph Wheelan. I most admire Adams’ time as a representative in the House of Representatives, during which he would become the Congress’s most influential and outspoken critic of slavery, as well as a critic of the government’s policies for the removal of eastern Native American tribes, a defender of the right of women to petition for political rights, and a critic of the 1848 war to obtain land from Mexico. His path as a champion for human rights began by accident, when he found himself in a legislative fight to end the gag rule in the Congress. The gag rule was imposed by Southern congressmen to silence any debate on the issue of slavery. This debate changed Adams, as he showed a willingness to learn and change as he was exposed to the arguments of abolitionists, to the stories of suffering of Native Americans, to the crusading spirit of women petitioners. A highlight of his later life was his defense of the mutineer slaves of the Cuban ship Amistad in the Supreme Court in 1840.
Recommended books: Arguing about Slavery by William Lee Miller, Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade by Joseph Wheelan.

CHARLES DICKENS
Until a year ago, I really didn’t know very much about Charles Dickens or his books. Then my wife and I enjoyed watching a 1930s version of A Tale of Two Cities and it got me interested in learning more about Dickens. I began to learn that many people that I admire, like Howard Zinn, Dorothy Day, and George Orwell, were deeply influenced by Dickens’ books and the empathy they have for the poor. Charles Dickens was a great social critic of his time and he had many of the same criticisms of the capitalist system as Karl Marx. Unlike Marx though, Dickens criticized the capitalist system from a moralist point of view rather than a revolutionary point of view. This insight has had a profound impact on me. I agree with many of the criticisms that the Left has of the current economic system that we have. I’ve always been wary, though, of the revolutionary rhetoric that I read in some of radical parts of the Left. Charles Dickens’s books have taught me that a moral critique can be just as radical as a revolutionary critique, because both critiques point out that the flaws of the economic and political system lie somewhere at the root of the system. I like how Dickens was interested in saving the oppressor as well as the oppressed in many of his books. Dickens attacked the values of the economic system that influenced people to be selfish, greedy and lacking in any empathy for the poor and underprivileged. It gave me a new way to look at radicalism. I hope to emulate the example of Charles Dickens’ social criticism in my political cartoons.
Recommended books: The Annotated Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels (Oprah’s Book Club) by Charles Dickens, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Frederick Douglass was one of the great champions of human rights in American history. A great abolitionist and a champion of African American rights, Douglass was also a strong supporter of women’s suffrage, a defender of immigrants’ rights, and a critic of the anti-Chinese laws that proliferated in the later 1800s. I admire his courage and his strong will, as he was born under the worst of circumstances as a slave. I know I wouldn’t have had the strength of will to overcome the beatings that Douglass went through. His intelligence, his perserverance, and his strong oratorical skills helped inspire the abolitionists and persuade the general public of the righteousness of the abolitionist cause. Douglass’s meetings with Abraham Lincoln helped Lincoln evolve into a greater respect for the equality of African Americans. To the very end, Douglass criticized the Jim Crow laws that were emerging as the Reconstruction era ended. Douglass spoke out for the rights of all marginalized and oppressed groups, regardless of the consequences.
Book recommendations: Frederick Douglass: In His Own Words edited by Milton Melzer, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass, Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader & a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery & Save the Union by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
There is not much left to say about Abraham Lincoln that hasn’t already been said by writers much better than me. The more I learn about Lincoln, the more I like him. The thing that I most like about Lincoln is his generosity of spirit and his capacity to grow as he gained new experieces and is exposed to different types of people. A primary example of his capacity to grow is in Lincoln’s evolving views on race. Though Lincoln had always been a strong opponent of slavery, his views on race before his presidency were similar to most of his white Americans. During the Civil War, however, those views changed. As Lincoln began to meet African Americans, especially in his meetings with Frederick Douglass, he began to shed his prejudices against the equality of African Americans. Lincoln was also deeply moved by the bravery of African American Union troops in battle during the war. By the end of the war, Lincoln was strongly advocating laws to insure the protection of the rights of the newly freed slaves. I personally think Lincoln is our greatest President,
Recommended books: The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman by William Lee MillerDouglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader & a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery & Save the Union by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes

JANE ADDAMS
I admire Jane Addams for many of the same reasons as I admire Benjamin Franklin. They both have deeply instilled in them a strong sense of civic activism. Both of them are wealthy individuals who are deeply empathetic to the plight of the poor and the marginalized. I just admire the variety of causes that Jane Addams tackled and the various groups that she had a hand in organizing to deal with the problems of society. I am empathetic to this approach, as I tend to look to groups that have worked on issues for several years to get their insights on particular issues. Addams was one of the leaders of the Hull House movement in Chicago, where social workers lived in settlement houses in poor immigrant neighborhoods to bring education opportunities, child care, and artistic endeavors to help empower the poor. She helped found the NAACP in 1909 due to her opposition to racial prejudice. Jane Addams was also a strong women’s suffragist and a strong pacifist, joining the Women’s Peace Party in 1915. Addams became president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in the 1920s.
Recommended books: Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, Jane Addams: Spirit In Action

CARLOS BULOSAN
Carlos Bulosan’s book America Is In The Heart really helped me to appreciate my Filipino heritage. I grew up in military bases most of my life, so I had little exposure to Filipino culture and never learned to speak Tagalog. During high school, I encountered many Filipinos who looked down on me because I didn’t know how to speak Tagalog and it made me very insecure about my Filipino heritage. Two things gave me more confidence in my Filipino heritage. The first thing was my first girlfriend, who was a Filipina. She was very kind to me and she accepted me for who I was. The second thing was taking an Asian American history course in college and learning about Carlos Bulosan for the first time. Carlos Bulosan was a poet and a union activist who entered the United States in 1930 and worked in the next 2 decades in various low-paying jobs: servicing hotels, harvesting in the fields, and working in Alaskan canneries. Carlos went to the public library and taught himself to read and write, eventually becoming a prolific writer determined to describe his struggles as a Filipino coming to America and the struggles of other people. I admire his leftist politics and his determination to bridge the gap between America’s high ideals and the discrimination that Filipinos and other immigrants faced while living in America.
Recommended books: America Is In The Heart by Carlos Bulosan, The American Radical by Mary Jo Buhle

DOROTHY DAY
Dorothy Day has been one of the biggest influences in my life. There have been times in my life that I’ve gotten into conflicts with other Christians who’ve accused me of not being a true Christian, and those conflicts have sometimes gotten me thinking of just leaving the Christian religion. My admiration of Dorothy Day is one of the things that kept me going as a Christian (the other thing is this fellow named Jesus). Dorothy Day is one of the most offbeat and interesting Christians that I know. As a young woman, she was an editor for the radical leftist magazine The Masses and she had as friends Anarchists, Socialists and Communists. She was jailed for participating in a protest for women’s suffrage. She had an abortion and eventually had a child out of wedlock. When her daughter was born, it inspired her to go to a Catholic Church and she eventually converted to Roman Catholicism when she found the same love of the poor in Catholic Social Teaching that she found in the radical politics of her friends. Day remained a radical activist, founding the Catholic Worker movement with Peter Maurin, a movement that had Catholic Worker houses to feed and shelter the poor and to protest war, discrimination of minorities and the excesses of the capitalist system. Dorothy Day’s Christian radicalism led her to deal with the poor directly in her Catholic Worker home, developing personal relationships with the homeless, the mentally ill, the marginalized. Religious activists like Dorothy Day are always reminding us that the least of us have value too, and I admire their courage in speaking out for people who cannot speak for themselves.
Recommended books: By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, Voices From The Catholic Worker edited by Rosalie Riegle Troester, The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

FRANKLIN AND ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
I always think of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt as a unit. It’s sad that their marriage wasn’t more fulfilling to them both, but as a political team they were a powerful force for good. Franklin Roosevelt was the consummate politician, able to use his charm and political savy to ease the fears of a nation going through the Great Depression and to pass legislation that would help the unemployed, the aged, the laborer, and the uneducated. Eleanor was the determined civic activist, highlighting civil rights issues, women’s right issues, economic issues, and worker issues through her travels across the nation and through her daily newspaper articles. Together, they gave the average American the feeling that the First Couple cared for them.
FDR’s New Deal helped out its most vulnerable citizens from the worst effects of the calamitious economic collapse by such programs as the Works Progress Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the United States Housing Authority. It empowered workers by putting the rights of collective bargaining into law through the Wagner Act. The elderly were given some measure of security through the Social Security Act.
Eleanor Roosevelt worked to include women in the New Deal programs. She spoke out against Southern segregation laws, organized a concert for African American singer Marian Anderson, and lobbied for anti-lynching laws in Congress. She made personal appearances to labor meetings to show her sympathy to workers. Eleanor held 348 press conferences during the Roosevelt administration, limiting attendence to female reporters and addressing issues like unemployment, poverty, education, rural life, and the role of women in society.
Recommended books: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands, My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962, Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt

PAULI MURRAY
When I first attended the Episcopal Church I wanted to find an Episcopalian who has the same radical Christian vibe that Dorothy Day has. I found a few contenders. Sara Miles is the author of the book Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion and is a lesbian leftist journalist who covered poor communities in Latin America and the Philippines, and started a food pantry for the poor people who inhabit the neighborhood of her church in San Francisco. Jonathan Daniels was an Episcopal seminarian who was killed while participating in the Freedom Summer civil rights campaign to register African Americans in Alabama. The Episcopalian whom I am most attracted to is Pauli Murray, Pauli Murray was a historian, attorney, poet, activist, teacher and Episcopal priest, and she spoke out her entire life for economic and racial justice. 
A member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Murray worked to end segregation on public transportation and she went to jail in March 1940 for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Virginia. She helped found the Congress of Racial Equality in 1942, and she received a law degree in the University of California Boalt School of Law. In 1977 Murray became the first African American woman to become a Episcopal priest. The more I learned about Pauli Murray’s accomplishments, the greater my respect became. I also grew more baffled as to why such a woman of accomplishment isn’t better known.
Recommended books: Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet

BAYARD RUSTIN
Bayard Rustin is one of the great forgotten heroes of the civil rights movement. I had not heard of him until a couple of years ago, when I wrote a blog about Grace Paley and Grace’s daughter commented that Bayard Rustin was the greatest influence in bringing Grace Paley over to nonviolence. Political cartoonist Jules Feiffer noted in his book Backing Into Forward: A Memoir that a lecture by Bayard Rustin taught Feiffer about the importance of the African American struggle for civil rights.
Rustin was a Quaker, a socialist and a gay man. His radical politics and his homosexuality were constant sources of problems Rustin, as mainstream civil rights leaders would try to minimize Rustin’s involvement on civil rights campaigns due to fear of a backlash of more conservative supporters who had problems with both socialism and homosexuality. Rustin briefly was a member of the American Communist Party in the late 1930s. He quit in 1941 because of its autocratic nature, but he learned a lot about organizing from the group. Bayard Rustin learned about nonviolent tactics from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Christian pacifist organization, and he used those lessons with the group he helped found, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In 1947, Rustin organized the Journey of Reconciliation, a percursor of the Freedom Rides, where 8 whites and 8 African Americans rode together on a bus in the South to protest segregation in interstate travel. Rustin taught the Reverand Martin Luther King Jr. about the tactics of nonviolence during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and helped him organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), though the SCLC would eventually force Rustin to leave the group because of his homosexuality. Rustin’s most famous feat was to organize the March on Washington in 19, where Martin Luther King Jr. had his “I Have A Dream” speech. I am deeply influenced by an essay that Rustin wrote titled From Protest To Politics, which described how the civil rights movement must shift from protesting on the streets to creating coalitions with unions and liberal religious groups to fight the economic disparities were deeply embedded in the structure of the economic system.
Recommended books: Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John Demilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’ Emilio

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
I have always respected Martin Luther King Jr. because of his “I Have A Dream” speech. The PBS documentary series “Eyes On The Prize” showed me a King who was in the middle of a larger Civil Rights movement that was challenging society’s legal and economic oppression of the African American community. It showed me the activist Martin Luther King Jr., the courageous religious subversive who was willing to say the unpopular thing about economic injustice, about the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King Jr. is such an icon now that we forget just how radical and subversive he was in the later part of the 1960s. Like many religious activists that I admire, King combined a strong moral standard with compassion for human weakness. With this compassion, King was able to empathize with those who are most opposed to him, to seek the redemption of the oppressor as well as the oppressed. I think if a strong moral standard is not combined with compassion for human weakness, that strong moral standard can go to extremes and a person could wind up like Torquemada or Robespierre. King’s compassion helped him to avoid that fate, and his humility is one of the most appealing things to me.
Recommended books: I Have a Dream – 40th Anniversary Edition: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, JR.’s Death and How It Changed America by Michael Dyson, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 by Branch Taylor, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch

THE KENNEDY BROTHERS
I’ve always been a fan of the Kennedys. I remember the documentaries and television specials that came out during the aniversary of Kennedy’s assasination, and I was deeply inspired by John F. Kennedy’s charisma, wit, and his clarion call for for all Americans to ask not what our country can do for us, but to ask what we could do for our country. And then his brother Bobby became a hero of mine, first from watching a chapter in the documentary “Eyes On The Prize” and then from checking out the book “RFK: The Collected Speeches”. And gradually I came around to Teddy Kennedy, after looking back at his career and seeing all of the great legislation that he passed that really helped ordinary Americans. At first I admired John F. Kennedy the most. As the years have passed, I’ve grown more partial to Bobby and Ted, as they both seemed more passionate about fighting social injustice, and more committed to speaking out for the voiceless in our society.

My favorite Kennedy is Bobby. Bobby always seemed to me this shy ackward man who felt ill-at-ease on the national stage, but forced himself to speak out to champion the ideas of his martyred brother. Bobby was the one who reached out to the African American community, he was the one who supported Cesar Chavez and the farm workers strike, he was the one who changed his mind about Vietnam and became a critic of the war. What I most admire about Bobby is his ability to inspire others to get involved in our democracy, to get people to believe that they can make a difference, that they are a part of this American society too.

It’s taken me a while to like Ted Kennedy. When I was young I felt more sorry for him than anything else. With Chappaquidik, with his marital problems and his alcohol problems, Ted seemed to me to be struggling with deep emotional problems stemming from the trauma of so many violent deaths in his family. As the years have passed, though, I grew to admire Ted as I saw the many legislative achievements that he had to helped the poor, the elderly and the marginalized. While John and Bobby had the ability to inspire us, Ted gave the Kennedy legacy its substance. Ted Kennedy authored over 2,500 bills, of which 500 became law. During the 1960s, Kennedy supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and the 1965 Immigration Act. Kennedy’s amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1966 led to many community-based health clinics throughout the nation. Kennedy sponsored the 1975 Education for All Handicapped People Act, and the 1980 Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act to protect the constitutional rights of the elderly, the mentally ill, the disabled, and the incarcerated. In 1990, Kennedy cosponsored with Orrin Hatch the Ryan White CARE Act to fund cities most hit by the AIDs epidemic. In 1990 Kennedy wrote the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1993 Kennedy co-authored the Family and Medical Leave Act, requiring businesses to provide unpaid leave for emergencies or births. In 1996 he cosponsored with Kansas Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act, which allowed employees to keep health insurance for a time after losing job. He worked for passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to restore a fair rule for filing pay discrimination cases. He worked for the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which gave public safety workers the right to form a union and bargain for wages, hours, and working conditions. Kennedy supported the Mathew Shephard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 which added violence against people due to sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes list.
Recommended books: RFK: The Collected Speeches, Let the Word Go Forth: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John F. Kennedy 1947 to 1963, The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America by Thurston Clarke, Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy by Peter Canellos

MURIEL RUKEYSER
I first encountered the name of Muriel Rukeyser from Grace Paley’s book “Just As I Thought”. I became interested in learning more about Rukeyser and was fascinated by what I discovered of the life of this very interesting woman. Muriel Rukeyser was a a poet, a journalist, a pilot and a political activist. She was determined to blaze her own path, and she took a lot of flack for her independence. She was a poet who was regularly criticized by literary critics for consistently commenting on political matters in her poetry. She was a leftist, but was regulary criticized by other radical leftists for not towing the party line. Her radical leftwing politics led her to be harassed during the McCarthy era during the 1950s, which caused her difficulty in finding work. She bore a child out of wedlock in the 1940s and chose to be a single parent, causing her to be shunned in many social circles. I most admire Rukeyser’s strength of will to live the life that she wanted to live and her willingness to pay the price for her artistic integrity when it would’ve been easier to conform.
I also deeply admire the many political causes that Muriel Rukeyser was involved in during her life. At the age of 19, Rukeyser reported on the second trial of the Scottsboro Boys in Decauter, Alabama in 1933, in which 9 black defendants were accused of rape, and were unable to have a fair trial due to racial prejudice. In 1936 Muriel reported on the antifascist Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and reported on the Spanish Civil War, writing various articles supporting the Spanish Republicans. Rukeyser wrote poems of the industrial disaster in West Virginia, where African American and migrant workers died of silicosis poisoning due to inadequate precautions taken by Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation. In 1972, she traveled with Denise Levertov to South Vietnam to protest the Vietnam War. Muriel traveled to South Korea in her capacity as president of the PEN American Center to hold a vigil outside the prison cell of the South Korean poet Kim Chi Ha.
Recommended books: The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, How Shall We Tell Each Other of the Poet?: The Life and Writing of Muriel Rukeyser edited by Anne F. Herzog and Janet E. Kaufman

GRACE PALEY
I became interested in Grace Paley because of the unusual cover of her on her book “The Collected Stories”. In the back cover, Donald Barthelme described Paley as a wonderful writer and troublemaker and that our country was lucky to have her. That hooked me. I started reading all that I could of Grace Paley, her short stories, her poems, her essays. I admire her role as a writer/activist. In her books, there is this wonderful sense of humor and this great love of family and friends that makes her seem so human to me. I’ve met a few radicals who seem so angry and righteous, and Grace Paley seems to be a radical of a very different cloth. She seems like the kind of person I’d enjoy the company of.
A description of her political activity. In the early 1960s, Paley helped organize the Greenwich Village Peace Center. In 1969, Paley went to Hanoi to free prisoners of war. In 1973, Paley traveled to Moscow as a delegate of the World Peace Congress. During the Carter administration, Paley was arrested along with other peace activists for unfurling a peace banner on the White House grounds.
Recommended books: The Collected Stories by Grace Paley, New and Collected Poems by Grace Paley, Just As I Thought by Grace Paley

HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn has been a shining light for me for the past couple of years. His “People’s History” is a wonderful book of the struggles of African Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, workers and those Americans that you normally do not hear about in regular history books that focused only on great political leaders. I learned for the first time about the Wobblies, the Populists, and many grassroots movements by people fighting for a more just community. My favorite book of Zinn is his autobiography “You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train”. In this book he chronicles his time as a teacher in the African American school Spellman College in the 1950s and how that led him to be involved in civil rights. He described his work in the anti-war movement in the 1960s. And he described his consequent activism against the Iraq War and against the power of corporations in our national life. What I like most about Zinn is his reverance for history, and for his faith in the power of people to join collectively and create social change. All protests, even the smallest public demonstrations of a handful of people holding picket signs, are meaningful to Zinn. While I met a lot of leftists who are disillusioned and pessimistic, I like Zinn’s optimism that with patience and persistence, the average people have to power through protest and civil disobedience to make great and positive changes in this country.
Recommended books: You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train by Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy by Howard Zinn, Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn, Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics by Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present

RALPH FASANELLA
I discovered Ralph Fasanella from an article in Smithsonian magazine in the early 1990s. He has become a role model for me of what an artist activist should be. My two favorite artists, Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera, were also leftwing artists, but Fasanella was more intimately tied to the working class of his time. At various times he was a garment worker, a truck driver, an ice delivery man, a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, and a union organizer. During the 1950s, he was blacklisted and harassed by the government for his progressive politics. He took part in a strike by Portuguese fishermen in 1986 and a strike by the Newspaper Guild in 1990.
These life experiences gave Fasanella a deep sympathy for the working man and he used his art to chronicle the history of the workers’ struggles for economic justice in America. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, Ralph worked by day at a gas station that he owned and at night he would work at his paintings. These are wonderful paintings of labor marches, protests, workers assemblies and union meetings. After he was discovered and became famous, Fasanella made paintings critical of the Reagan era of big business and decried the decline of union power. All the while, Fasanella remained a good family man who went to his favorite restaurants and enjoyed conversations with the workers who regularly dined there. He stayed in touch with his roots, something I deeply respect.
Recommended books: Ralph Fasanellas America by Paul S. D’ambrosio

Poets At the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Poets have always had a strong presence in social justice causes. In the 1800s, Lord Byron supported the Luddites and Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire and Percy Shelley was an advocate for nonviolence and social justice for the lower classes. W.S. Merton and Robinson Jeffers were strong advocates for environmental causes. Lanston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden were strong supporters of the civil rights movement. Muriel Rukeyser, Grace Paley, and June Jordan participated in the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. With this history of social activism by poets, it comes as no surprise that many poets are participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests that are around the country.

A Facebook page called Poetry@OccupyWallStreet has been created to information to poets on ways in which they can participate in the Occupy Wall Street protests. Through this page, poets can organize readings, and post poems to be read. Every Friday night in the New York site, at around 9:30pm, poets of all walks of life and ages come in and read or perform their poetry. The Occupy Wall Street Library has just published an Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology. Right now the anthology is available only at the Occupy Wall Street Library, but there are plans to have it available online. Famous poets like Anne Waldman, Adrienne Rich, and Michael McClure have contributed their poetry, as well as regular people and even children.

The Everyday Citizen website has two wonderful poets who regularly blog here, Diane Wahto and Melissa Tuckey. I just found out from reading a blog in the Kansas Free Press blogsite that Diane Wahto will be one of 150 Kansas poets whose work will be published in a poetry collection called Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, published by Woodley Press. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, the poet laureate of Kansas, chose the 150 poems that are to be published in the collection, which makes the inclusion in this book a great honor. The poets will begin a twenty-city reading tour throughout Kansas beginning in November.

Melissa Tuckey is the assistant festival director for the Split This Rock Poetry Festival which celebrates the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change. In March of 2012, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival will take place in Washington, DC, for four days and more than 40 events—readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programs, open mics, and activism. The 2012 Festival will be dedicated to the life and work of June Jordan.

Below are poems from favorite poets who deal with social justice issues.

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!

I Gave Away That Kid

By Grace Paley

I gave away that kidlike he was an old button
Here old button get off of me
I don’t need you anymore
go on get out of here
get into the army
sew yourself onto the colonel’s shirt
or the captain’s fly jackass
don’t you have any sense
don’t you read the papers
why are you leaving now?

That kid walked out of here like he was the cat’s pyjamas
what are you weaking p j’s for you damn fool?
why are you crying you couldn’t
get another job anywhere anyways
go march to the army’s drummer
be a man like all your dead uncles
then think of something else to do

Lost him, sorry about that the president said
he was a good boy
never see one like him again
Why don’t you repeat that your honor
why don’t you sizzle up the meaning
of that sentence for your breakfast
why don’t you stick him in a prayer
and count to ten before my wife gets you.

That boy is a puddle in Beirut the paper says
scraped up for singing in a church
too bad too bad is a terrible tune
it’s no song at all how come you sing it?

I gave away that kidlike he was an old button
Here old button get off ame
I don’t need you anymore
go on get out of here
get into the army
sew yourself onto the colonel’s shirt
or the captain’s fly jackass
don’t you have any sense
don’t you read the papers
why are you leaving now?

What Have You Brought Home From The Wars?

By Muriel Rukeyser

What have you brought
home from the wars, father?

Scars.
We fought far overseas; we knew
the victory must
be at home.
But here I see
Only a trial by time
of those
who know.
The public men all shout: Come bomb,
come burn
our hate.
I do not
want it shot;
I want it solved.
This is the word
the dead men said.
They said peace.
I saw in the hot light
of our century
each face killed.

What Do We See?

By Muriel Rukeyser

When they’re decent about women, they’re frightful about children,
When they’re decent about children, they’re rotten about artists,
When they’re decent about artists, they’re vicious about whores,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re kind to whores, they’re death on communists,
When they respect communists, they’re foul to bastards,
When they’re human to bastards, they mock at hysterectomy-
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent about surgery, they bomb the Vietnamese,
When they’re decent to Vietnamese, they’re frightful to police,
When they’re human to police, they rough up lesbians,
What do we see? What do we not see?

When they’re decent to old women, they kick homosexuals,
When they’re good to homosexuals, they can’t stand drug people,
When they’re calm about drug people, they hate all Germans,
What do we see? What do we not see?

Cadenza for the reader

When they’re decent to Jews, they dread the blacks,
When they know blacks, there’s always something : roaches
And the future and children and all potential. Can’t stand themselves
Will we never see? Will we ever know?

I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies

By June Jordan

Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto,
President of The People’s Republic of Angola: 1976

1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:

fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or
condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?
Shall we pick a number?
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

I must become a menace to my enemies.

3
And if I
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries

And if I
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.

I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF POETRY ASSEMBLIES IN NEW YORK

A YOUTUBE VIDEO OF A POETRY READING IN OCCUPY DENVER

A VIDEO OF A POETRY READING IN OCCUPY MINNESOTA

A VIDEO OF A POETRY READING IN OCCUPY KANSAS CITY

A VIDEO OF A VISUAL POETRY READING FROM OCCUPY INDIANA

A POEM BY MARK LIPMAN FOR OCCUPY LA

A VIDEO OF STEPHAN SAID CHANTING AN EGYPTIAN FREEDOM SONG FOR OCCUPY WALL STREET

A VIDEO OF AN OPEN MIC NIGHT AT OCCUPY SAN FRANCISCO

A VIDEO OF A POETRY READING IN OCCUPY LOS ANGELES

Going to a vigil

Over the years, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve been somewhat of an arm chair liberal. I’ve talked a lot with my friends about politics and social change, and I’ve complained a lot about the things that are wrong with our society. Yet I haven’t really volunteered much to try to make any changes in our society. My brother and his wife put me to shame in this sense. Over the years, they have taken part in protests for immigrant rights and to fight the invasion of Iraq, and they are now working with the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports to reduce pollution in the Ports of southern California. Right now they are working on a postcard campaign to persuade local politicians and Congress to support the Clean Trucks program. Attached is the copy of the postcard and here is the website for more information about the Coalition: http://www.cleanandsafeports.org/. I deeply admire them for their activism and willingness to get involved to try to improve their community and their country. I did a cartoon for Everyday Citizen about my cartoon character Jasper taking part in a protest.

Last week I decided to attend my first vigil. It was a vigil on health care reform on September 2, 2009 at the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and Winchester Road in San Jose, California. I went with my friend Dave, who officiated my wedding with Lisa 4 years ago, and is a passionate liberal and a former nurse. When I was researching health care reform to try to form an opinion, I would ask people that I knew in the health care field what their opinions were. Dave has definite opinions of the health care debate.

It was a fun vigil. Several people were there for the first time, and I think everyone was invigorated to meet other people who shared the same passion for health care reform. During the vigil, a large group of people lined themselves at the corner of the street and waved signs at passing cars. If the cars approved of the message of universal health care, they would honk their horns. At the same time, the organizer of the event would allow various individuals to go to the microphone and tell of their own individual stories about their experiences being sick and the financial toll that they suffered. As the night encroached, we lighted candles.

I was amazed at how many cars honked their horns in support of health care reform. A lady next to me, who participated in past vigils protesting the war in Iraq, mentioned that there were far more cars honking their horns for health care reforms than honked their horns for peace. The people who were participating in the vigil were very diverse, with many different nationalities, age groups, and an even mix of men and women. Dave and I met unexpectedly met some friends whom we hadn’t seen in over a year.

A highlight for me was in meeting Father Bill Leininger. When I first talked to him, he mentioned that in the past he had marched with Cesar Chavez and had met Dorothy Day, and I was really impressed with him. After the vigil was over, I mentioned this priest in my facebook site and a friend told me that Father Leininger is a pioneer clergy in the social protest movements of the past 40 years. I went on the internet and found that in recent years, Father Leininger has joined in vigils in support of protests in support of janitors at Cisco System, to support WalMart employees, and to fight for immigrant rights. Last May, SIREN (Services, Immigrant Rights, & Education Network), 2nd Annual Fundraiser gave Father Leininger their Advocate Award for his years of support of immigrant rights. After finding this out, I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to Father Leininger more.

If you want to know more about what activists are doing around the country, this website, Crossleft, is a good source of information. The Crossleft bloggers are all activists in various progressive Christian causes and are good sources for progressive action. Two magazines are also excellent sources. One is the Catholic Worker. Founded in the depths of the Great Depression by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker chronicles the work of a progressive Catholic movement founded by Day and Maurin to help the poor and fight for peace.

In the August-July 2009 Catholic Worker, Jenny Thomas wrote an article about a group of Catholic Workers who went to a Gaza border crossing to deliver $17,000 of medical supplies to a hospital in Gaza. The members of the Catholic worker team, Beth Brockman, Mark Colville, Brenna Cussen, Colin Gilbert, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, and Jenny Thomas, went to the Dheished Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, the Palestinian farmers cut off from any water supply, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Ric Rhetor wrote an article about the New Sanctuary movement and a vigil they held on July 7 outside the Federal Court in New York. It was for Roxroy Salmon and his appeal to stay in the country. RoxRoy is an organizer at Families for Freedom and a member of the New Sanctuary Coalition. Because of minor drug convictions from over 20 years ago, he is facing removal proceedings. The court gave Roxroy an order of deportation, but his lawyer has filed for a deferred action.

Z Magazine is an independent magazine based in Boston. Z Magazine has a radical point of view and chronicles the efforts of activists to make this world a better place.

In the July/August 2009 issue of Z Magazine, there was an article mentioning the closing of Northland Poster Collective after 30 years of creating art, slogans, posters, bumper stickers, t-shirts, poems and quotes for unions, grassroots activists, and social justice movements. The organization was an activist organization and art group, and it provided such slogans for picket lines as “The Labor Movement: The Folks That Brought You The Weekend”, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Cross Picket Lines”, and “Unions: The Anti-Theft Device For Working People”. The troubles that Northland Poster Collective have faced are being faced by all left wing media center.

In the September 2009 issue of Z Magazine, nine activists were arrest in August in Fort McCoy in Tomah, Wisconsin, for protesting U.S. wars in Iraq and Afganistan and for the continuing U.S. possession of nuclear weapons. These nine activists were also commemorating the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima in August 6 and Nagasaki in August 9. Four members of the group were taken to Madison where they faced federal trespass charges.

One of my favorite books is Grace Paley’s book, Just As I Thought is chronicles her years of activism against war and racism, and for her years of teaching. I’ve admired the humorous and down-to-earth perspective that Paley brings to her recollections of protesting the Vietnam War and the various vigils against nuclear weapons. In an interview with Meredith Smith and Karen Kahn, Paley talked about the importance of Americans to use their privileges to fight for social causes.

“But we were just talking about civil disobedience. Some people think it’s an elite act because some of us have privileges of white skin or maybe jobs we won’t lose the minute we are arrested. Well, it’s true that people of color are treated worse in prison than white women. They are. (Of course, the great civil disobedience movements- King, Gandhi- were not exactly white). When white women (or men) use the argument- therefore nobody should do it- I don’t understand them. It seems to me that privilege is obligation, that if it’s easier to go to jail, so to speak, or more possible, then direct actions that may lead to arrest are exactly what we ought to undertake when that is what’s called for.

It’s sort of like having democratic rights and not using them. It’s a totally different subject but people will always come to you when you’re giving out leaflets and say, ‘You wouldn’t be able to do that in Russia.’ So therefore you shouldn’t do it here? Well, of course you have an obligation to push the privileges of democracy, to push and extend them everywhere. And people who can should do so. We also have to be willing to divide up the work without feeling that some folks are being snotty about it or braver. They’re not braver. For instance, when my children were babies, I was a lot more cautious. We much investigate, imagine, press the limits of nonviolent action.”

My favorite book of activism is Howard Zinn’s recollection You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train. Zinn’s book chronicles his life of activism, from the time he was a teacher at an black women’s school in Spellman College in the 1950s, and his work in the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement. He wrote something that describes the importance of vigils and protests and petition writing in the cause of social change. He wrote:

“Consider the remarkable transformation, in just a few decades, in people’s consciousness of racism, in the bold presence of women demanding their rightful place, in a growing public awareness that homosexuals are not curiosities but sensate human beings, in the long-term growing skepticism about military interventions despite the brief surge of military madness during the Gulf War.

It is that long-term change that I think we must see if we are not to lose hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment we will continue to see. We forget how often in this century we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

The bad things that happen are repetitions of bad things that have always happened- war, racism, maltreatment of women, religious and nationalist fanaticism, starvation. The good things that happen are unexpected.

Unexpected, and yet explainable by certain truths which spring at us from time to time, but which we tend to forget: Political power, however formidible, is more fragile than we think. (Note how nervous are those who hold it) Ordinary people can be intimidated for a time, can be fooled for a time, but they have a down-deep common sense, and sooner or later they find a way to challenge the power that oppresses them.

People are not naturally violent or cruel or greedy, although they can be made so. Human beings everywhere want the same things: they are moved by the sight of abandoned children, homeless families, the casualties of war; they long for peace, for friendship and affection across lines of race and nationality.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.

We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

Grace Paley and the Writer/Activist

One day, about a year ago, I was busy doing my usual work of processing books in the library where I work.  As I was going through the books, I spied a cover that caught my interest.  The cover was a sepia picture of an older woman staring straight ahead at the reader, in a backyard with a crow to the right of her foot.  The book was titled The Collected Stories and it was by an author that I had never heard before.  They say a person should never judge a book by its cover, but I became interested in reading Grace Paley’s stories because of that cover.  I found a remarkable writer of the lives of working class families.

 The Collected Stories are the combination of Grace Paley’s 3 short story collections that she wrote over the period of over 30 years:  The Little Disturbances of Man, written in 1959;  Enormous Changes At the Last Minute, published in 1974; and Later the Same Day, which came out in 1986.  These 45 stories make up the bulk of Paley’s writing, and it portrays the lives of a group of mostly women over the life of a New York working class neighborhood.    They are a mixture of immigrant Europen Jews, Puerto Ricans, African Americans and a whole assortment of ethnic groups, learning to live together.  In the short stories we follow the lives of recurring characters of that neighborhood, especially Faith Darwin and the loves of her life.  

What I most like about her stories is the gritty humor and the compassion of her characters.  Each story begins with wonderful first paragraphs, done often in a smart alecky style that I associate with the New Yorker writers like Dorothy Day or James Thurber.   The characters that inhabit these stories are extremely likable and funny, and as a first generation Filipino American, I relate to the difficulties of Paley’s characters trying to fit in to the general American society.  One of my favorite stories is the dilemna faced by Jewish parents when their daughter gets a big role in the school Christmas play.    Another favorite story is the transformation of an old man’s racist views when he discovers he has a son who is part African American.   In these stories, Paley’s characters grow, discover their own political consciousness, remain optimistic in spite of some horrible things that happen in their neighborhood.

After reading The Collected Stories, I became interested in learning more about Grace Paley.  I found a woman whose life was just as interesting as her stories.    Paley was the child of Russian Jewish immigrants in the 1930s, and she grew up strongly influenced by the leftist movements of the time.  She studied poetry briefly in college, taking a course with W.H. Auden.  Paley married and raised 2 children, and that took up most of her time. Grace wrote occassionally, and it was only thrwhen a visiting parent noticing her stories that she became published.  That parent happened to be Ken McCormick, an editor at Doubleday, and soon after her writing career was born.   The acclaim of her first book attracted the attention of Columbia University, and that started 20 years as a teacher at Columbia University, City University of New York, Syracuse University, and Sarah Lawrence. 

Along with her writing and teaching, Grace Paley was also a political activist.  In the early 1960s, Paley helped organize the Greenwich Village Peace Center.  Paley went to Hanoi to free prisoners of war and agitate for peace in 1969.  In 1973, Paley traveled to Moscow  as a delegate of the World Peace Congress.  During the Carter administration, Paley was arrested along with other peace activists for unfurling a peace banner on the White House grounds.  Her political activities are chronicled in a series of essays she wrote that can be found in a wonderful book Just As I Thought.

Though I’ve only known of Grace Paley for only about a year now, her books and her life have had a profound influence on me.  She shows me that one can be passionate about politics and art and still maintain a sense of humor and a love of family and friends.  Her works are never dogmatic, and they are full of compassion for even the people she disagrees with.  From what I’ve read, Paley has had that effect upon many readers in the past 40 years.  In her book, “Traveling Mercies”, Ann Lamott gives a description on the effect Grace Paley had in her life:

“In 1970, when I was sixteen, the women’s movement had just burst into the general public awareness. I am someone who can say with all sincerity that I owe my life to the movement, but as it first emerged from New York, much of its gospel was defined by grown-up daughters who did not want to risk having anything in common with what had been their mothers’ entrapment. As a result, some of the language of the early movement contained an ugly rejection of mothers, of motherhood, of softness, of wanting to be in deep relationships with men. But at the same time, coming out of New York from the tenements and the Village and the antiwar movement was a short story writer whose work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things-a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurturer- and you could also be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral. You could escape the fate of your mother, become who you were born to be, and succeed in the world without having to participate in traditionally male terms- without hardness, coldness, one-upmanship, without having to compete and come out the winner.

She was beautiful, zaftig, and powerful; she was a mother; she was in love; she was a combative pacifist. That was Grace Paley.

I used to almost pant like a thirsty dog when I’d have a new story of hers to read. I drank up her generosity, the radical wisdom in her stories, the wonderful sense of perspective, grounded in self-forgiveness. She pointed out her own flaws and foibles, but it was clear that she was not bogged down in them, not caught up in the small stuff. Foibles are not worth hating- that was the point; what was worth hating were poverty, injustice, war, the killing of our sons and brothers.”

Death of Grace Paley

Last week one of my favorite authors just died.  Grace Paley was a short story writer and social activist whose life was one that I want to emulate.  Her stories were full of humor and compassion and they described a New York neighborhood full of gossip and talk.  I just discovered her a short while ago, while processing a cart of books at my work.  I was intriqued by the cover of her Collected Stories, with Paley standing full figure, staring at the camera, with a crow to the right of her.