Year: 1956

Summary: Reports on the many religious serving poor Negroes in Mississippi in schools, parishes, and aid associations. Stories of segregation and small victories for equal rights. Keywords: African-American, colored, blacks, civil rights (The Catholic Worker, December 1956, 1, 6, 7. DDLW #715).

Summary: Depicts the plight of black sharecroppers in Mississippi–efforts to drive them off the land, economic injustice, intimidation, and lack of ownership. Tells of efforts to speak out and organize. Before arriving in the deep south she visits Catholic Workers in Memphis. Keywords: segregation The Catholic Worker, November 1956, 6, 8. DDLW #714).

Summary: Reminds readers that love is an exchange of gifts and that helping the poor reveals God and leads to a better social order. Speaks of the continuing struggle to remove segregation. (The Catholic Worker, November 1956, 2. DDLW #712).

Summary: Tales of three guests–a reconciled death, a desperate mother, and a hijacked worker. (The Catholic Worker, November 1956, 5. DDLW #713).

Summary: Describes minor trials with the housing department. Admires the work of religious communities and other groups on a trip that included days of recollection, time with her grandchildren, speaking engagements, and conferences. (The Catholic Worker, October 1956, 2, 7. DDLW #711).

Summary: Admires new pictorial lives of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius giving a brief biography of each saint noting their work and radical conversions. (The Catholic Worker, September 1956, 5. DDLW #709).

Summary: Graphic description of a visit to a prisoner on death row and other stories of terrible deaths in their neighborhood. Asks “Where to lay the blame?” Lashes out against “this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system” calling for building up all forms of mutual aid. (The Catholic Worker, September 1956, 6, 7. DDLW #710).

Summary: Describes her and 18 others’ arrest and court appearances for civil disobedience after demonstrating and not taking shelter in an air raid drill. Speaks of the courage and suffering needed in battle and in using spiritual weapons. Going to jail is one way of visiting the prisoner. (The Catholic Worker, July-August 1956, 1, 8. DDLW #243).

Summary: Discusses the tendency to rewrite history to suit our present purposes with examples about Stalin and union organizing. “Who tells the truth nowadays?” Links finding truth to taking time to be quiet, alone, and getting enough sleep. (The Catholic Worker, July-August 1956, 7. DDLW #245).