Food and no Food

Randall Stephens

Eating . . . and not eating. Since the post from the other day was about religion and weight gain, here's another about relieving world hunger and fasting for a cause.

NPR ran an intriguing story the other day about Former Congressman and director of Alliance to End Hunger Tony Hall, who "has joined dozens of religious leaders and thousands of supporters to protest budget cuts that they say will unfairly affect the poor." It reminded me of George McGovern's talk I heard at the University of Florida nearly a decade ago. The lecture was sponsored by the History Department. McGovern pondered his religious upbringing, discussed what the US could do to alleviate hunger around the globe, and spoke briefly about how the 9/11 attacks were changing America and its relationships with other nations. (I'm also thinking of activist and ag specialist Glen Fell who spoke at ENC the other day on his work training subsistence farmers around the globe in an effort to reduce hunger.)

Back to the NPR piece:

Pam Fessler, "Ex-Congressman Fasts To Protest Budget Cuts," NPR, April 17, 2011

PAM FESSLER: Meet Tony Hall. A few weeks ago, the 69-year-old might have been called a little pudgy. Today, he hikes up his pants before he sits.

Mr. HALL: I am the executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger.

FESSLER: He's also a former Democratic congressman from Ohio who made headlines in the 1990s by going on a 22-day hunger strike. He was protesting what he saw as congress's failure to address the problems of the poor. And today?

Mr. HALL: Well, I'm in my 18th day of a hunger fast. I started off as a water-only fast and now I'm doing liquids. And really what we're trying to do is raise awareness.

FESSLER: So far, he's lost about 18 pounds. But Hall says it's not so bad, especially when thousands of people around the world die each day of malnutrition and millions of Americans worry about their next meal. He worries what will happen if lawmakers accept proposed cuts in food stamps and foreign aid.

Mr. HALL: They have a moral obligation when they look at this budget not only to cut the budget but to cut it in a righteous way. . . .

The "Newness" of the 1830s and 40s

Randall Stephens

Today we'll be discussing Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz's The Kingdom of Matthias (Oxford University Press, 1994) in my Forging of an American Nation (1783-1865) class. As most readers of RiAH know, the authors tell the story of a strange religious group and its even stranger prophet, Matthias. The tale of Matthias's Kingdom--rife with "free-lovism," violence, and mystifying, anti-Finneyite beliefs--became front-page news in the 1830s. Early reports from those in my class who have already dug in are positive. One said it seemed a little like a 19th-century E True Hollywood Story.

I picked up a collection of essays, State of Mind: A Boston Reader (1948), at Commonwealth Books here in town last week. It includes wonderful material from the 17th to the mid 20th century. One selection--"The Newness" by Robert Carter, an essay that appears in the November 1889 issue of the Century Magazine--would be a good primary source item to read alongside The Kingdom of Matthias. Carter's sarcastic romp through the reform decades does not deal directly with the hirsute prophet Matthias, but an oddball cast of other wide-eyed dietary, dress, social, and anti-slavery reformers make an appearance in "The Newness." The essay can be read as a local color, skeptical, post-Civil War remembrance of the failures and naivete of reformism.

I include a few passages here:

By the "Newness" I mean a very singular intellectual and spiritual movement which broke out like an epidemic in New England some forty years ago, and ran its course for about ten years, when it subsided and disappeared almost as suddenly as it arose. I call it the "Newness," because that was the most distinctive term applied to it, and the one by which it was most frequently designated by those engaged in it, though in fact it had no authentic or universally accepted appellation. By outsiders it was generally called Transcendentalism, and its disciples Transcendentalists, and to some extent and at certain periods those terms were used by the disciples themselves. . . .

I have noticed the influence which Unitarianism, Abolitionism, and the study of German literature had in producing the "Newness," and I have mentioned 1835 as about the date of its manifestation. The republication in this country of Carlyle's Sartor Resartus in 1836, and the appearance in the same year of Emerson's Nature, followed rapidly by his other works in the same vein, may be said to have brought the movement to a head, and it soon culminated in the issue of the magazine called "The Dial," in July, 1840, and, shortly after, in the establishment of the Community or Association of Brook Farm, near Boston. . . .

Brook Farm, however, was not the only community which was founded by the disciples of the " Newness." There was one established in 1843 on a farm called Fruitlands, in the town of Harvard, about forty miles from Boston. This was of a much more ultra and grotesque character than Brook Farm. Here were gathered the men and women who based their hopes of reforming the world, and of making all things new, on dress and on diet. They revived the Pythagorean, the Essenian, and the monkish notions of asceticism, with some variations and improvements peculiarly American. The head of the institution was Bronson Alcott, a very remarkable man, whose singularities of character, conduct, and opinion would alone afford sufficient topics fora long lecture. His friend Emerson defined him to be a philosopher devoted to the science of education, and declared that he had singular gifts for awakening contemplation and aspiration in simple and in cultivated persons. He was self educated, but had acquired a rare mastery of English in speech, though his force and subtlety of expression seemed to fail him when he wrote. His writings, though quaint and thoughtful, are clumsy compared with his conversation, which has been pronounced by the best judges to have been unrivaled in grace and clearness.

Mr. Alcott was one of the foremost leaders of the "Newness." He swung round the circle of schemes very rapidly, and after going through a great variety of phases he maintained, at the time of the foundation of Fruitlands, that the evils of life were not so much social or political as personal, and that a personal reform only could eradicate them; that self-denial was the road to eternal life, and that property was an evil, and animal food of all kinds an abomination. No animal substance, neither flesh, fish, butter, cheese, eggs, nor milk, was allowed to be used at Fruitlands. They were all denounced as pollution, and as tending to corrupt the body and through that the soul. Tea and coffee, molasses and rice, were also proscribed,— the last two as foreign luxuries,— and only water was used as a beverage.

Mr. Alcott would not allow the land to be manured, which he regarded as a base and corrupting and unjust mode of forcing nature. He made also a distinction between vegetables which aspired or grew into the air, as wheat, apples, and other fruits, and the base products which grew downwards into the earth, such as potatoes, beets, radishes, and the like. These latter he would not allow to be used. The bread of the community he himself made of unbolted flour, and sought to render it palatable by forming the loaves into the shape of animals and other pleasant images. He was very strict, indeed rather despotic, in his rule of the community, and some of the members have told me that they were nearly starved to death there; nay, absolutely would have perished with hunger if they had not furtively gone among the surrounding farmers and begged for food. . . .

Brook Farm exploded in 1847 and Margaret Fuller went to Europe, I think it had very little distinctive existence in New England. The aspiring youth of New England seem now to be contented with making their way in the world very much as other people make it, without seeking for any fundamental change in the established order of society.

Labor in the Pulpit

Paul Harvey

For this Labor Day, here's a whole host of links, pdf printouts, reprinted statements, and aids to "Labor in the Pulpit," from our friends at Interfaith Worker Justice. Included, for example, is the link to this piece by Jennifer Butler at the Washington Post's "On Faith" site, which provides this helpful set of followups:

Along with the Catholic Church's centuries-old commitment to labor rights, many faith-based social justice groups are leading the fight for fair wages and corporate accountability across the country. Interfaith Worker Justice, a Chicago-based national advocacy organization, has played an indispensable role drawing attention to wage theft - the illegal underpayment or non-payment of workers. Each year, wage theft affects millions of workers, often forcing them to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table. Since 1996, through a Labor in the Pulpits program, thousands of congregations across the country have focused their Labor Day weekend services on the injustices faced by low-wage workers. Groups such as the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Jewish Funds for Justice support local organizations that empower workers and advocate for policies that protect working families. PICO National Network, a national network of faith-based community organizations, plays an important role mobilizing people of faith to pressure financial institutions to end predatory lending and strengthen low-income neighborhoods through sound economic development. And unlike today's Tea Party movement and other anti-government zealots, faith groups affirm the essential role government has in serving the common good and protecting those who are most vulnerable to market downturns.

Here's an announcement and statement about the day by Interfaith Worker Justice:|

Lifting up Workers on Labor Day Weekend
Religious and Labor Leaders Voice Shared Concerns through Labor in the Pulpits

In the richest country in the world, more than two million full-time workers live below the poverty line, struggling to pay for necessities like food, housing, healthcare, transportation, and childcare. In the face of this scandal, Interfaith Worker Justice provides a prophetic voice.

Labor Day is a time for the religious community and the labor movement not only to celebrate working people and their contributions to society but to remember the struggles that workers endured to achieve the many benefits we now enjoy but take for granted: the eight-hour day, workers’ compensation, overtime pay, pensions, health and safety laws, Social Security, Medicare, vacation days, unemployment compensation, family medical leave, a restriction on child labor, a minimum wage and the right to organize for collective bargaining. These benefits helped to humanize the workplace and to provide a safety net for millions.

For the last 15 years, thousands of congregations have focused their Labor Day weekend services on the injustices facing low-wage workers and the religious community's efforts to support those workers' struggles for living wages and family-sustaining benefits.

This Labor Day weekend, over 1,000 Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar services will be held across the country.

“Labor in the Pulpits expresses in a very clear way the bonds between religion and labor,” says IWJ Executive Director Kim Bobo. Those bonds are even stronger this year, says Bobo, “as we stand poised to bring about real change in our country, from reforming health care to stopping wage theft and making our workplaces more democratic.”

Labor in the Pulpits offers a series of litanies, responsive readings, reflections, and interfaith prayer service guides. New materials added this year include a Muslim worship aid, a Jewish reflection, prayers and readings on the rights of workers.

SNCC, Faith, and Social Justice

Paul Harvey

A few notes on the anniversary of the March on Washington, August 28, 1963.

I blogged a bit before about the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin event tomorrow on the anniversary (whether by Coincidence or by Providence has been left ambiguous), and swore afterwards to ignore it. Life's too short. (And anyway, you can read about it at the NYT here, and get Julie Ingersoll's informed analysis here).

So I've done so, more or less, until the eve of the anniversary which brings two must-read reflections. First is Eugene Robinson's quick takedown of Beck's perversion of the history and theology of King. Second, for a softer-edged but powerful remembrance and appreciation, I recommend Randal Jelks's piece today at Black Bottom. Randal concludes with some good words about that era's movement of social and economic justice:

What made that one-day event so successful was that in every city and community in the country civil rights protest had been taking place. March organizers did not call people to organize on the grassroots level because that was occurring everywhere through local leaders. What the organizers needed to do was to get those local leaders to bring their people from their towns and hamlets to Washington. The hard work was getting all these people to cooperate and come together around the common themes of “Jobs and Freedoms.” Dr. King’s “I Have Dream Speech” was the topping on the cake. He voiced the collective aspirations of a country and a people who had been denied both full employment and civic liberties. However, the real work as King knew so well had been done on the grassroots level and without that organizing that speech would not be remembered today.

Back in 1963, what the March organizers accomplished outlasted the Dodgers’ pennant win. And it will surely out last the tomfoolery of the latest conservative media spectacle. Let us not be distracted by romanticization of the past or angered by this momentary nonsense of reactionary conservatism. Rather, let us commit ourselves to organizing and building on the legacy that made that very special day forty-seven years ago possible.

And finally, CNN has put together a nice history of SNCC video today, featuring my dear friend Maria Varela:

Her work is relatively little known to the general public, and appears infrequently even in studies of this era, but she took some of the most interesting, "in the action" photographs I've seen from that era, and has gone on to a lifetime of community organizing (and a MacArthur award) since then. "My 60s wasn't sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll," she likes to say, a favorite chestnut that I like to use when students start repeating tired cliches about the 60s, or older folks repeat even tireder cliches about the same period.

Maria came at this era from a Catholic social justice perspective, complementary to but very different from the Protestant underpinnings of most of her black (and white) SNCC compatriots. My students hugely enjoyed the couple of times I've been able to have Maria around the classroom for dialogues about the history of SNCC -- our interpretations of the period are quite different, and clash at some points, including on the relationship of SNCC to religious faith. I'll always treasure that dialogue.

Liberty to the Downtrodden

John Turner

I've been looking forward to the appearance of a new book by Matthew J. Grow, an incoming YSAR and historian of nineteenth-century American religion.

Yale University Press has just released (available today on amazon.com) Grow's "Liberty to the Downtrodden": Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer. Kane, a diminutive hypochondriac, is most renowned as the friend of the Mormons who negotiated a peaceful solution to the 1857-58 Utah War. While drawing on rich archival sources to illuminate Kane's friendship with the Saints, Grow also uses Kane's varied career to reevaluate antebellum social reform:

Kane is representative of reformers who combined an allegiance to the Democratic Party, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism. The antebellum Democratic Party, though usually depicted as antireform because of its general support of southern slavery, had a significant reform wing, driven by the party's egalitarian impulses and more inclusive vision of American religious and ethnic pluralism ... The ethos of these anti-evangelical, Democratic reformers also resonated with romanticism. The emphasis that Jacksonian Democrats placed on liberty, by which they meant removing barriers to individual progress and freedom, corresponded with romanticism's emphasis on the individual and its belief in the perfectibility of mankind ... A romantic impulse impelled these reformers to sympathize with those on the margins of society, declare war on human suffering, and create a self-identity rooted in protecting the oppressed -- including slaves, prisoners, the poor, Catholic immigrants, and Mormons. (xvi)

I anticipate Liberty to the Downtrodden will reach the wide audience it deserves. Not only does Grow enrich our understanding of social reform, romanticism, and antebellum religion, he also writes eloquently and has constructed a lively narrative fitting of Kane's own unusual path through life.