More than 1,500 young evangelicals from across the U.S.
Activism
Obery M. Hendricks Jr. 12-01-2006
Jesus was a political revolutionary—not the meek figure he is commonly portrayed as—whose teachings have been diluted, if not corrupted, by those in positions of power, writes Obery Hen
Donovan Jacobs 11-01-2006
Maybe a single film can't change the world, but put a social action campaign behind it and you have the seeds of a movement.
Danny Duncan Collum 8-01-2006
Neil Young's Living With War reopens the channel between artist and audience.
Dean Nelson 7-01-2006
He seems relatively amused when people quote lines from the most famous song he’s ever recorded, but this day he was pretty serious.
Ched Myers 7-01-2006
To wade in the water is to be immersed in our Lord's perverse ethic of gain through loss.
James Ferguson 7-01-2006
A refugee camp popped up last April on the sports field of Lennox Middle School, right next to Los Angeles International Airport.
John Malkin 6-01-2006
Everyone wants to be happy and to fulfill their dreams. For many who live in war zones, prisons, and places of poverty, those dreams aren’t likely to come true.
Danny Duncan Collum 6-01-2006
For the next 54 years, Anne Braden was a solid citizen of 'the other America.'
Molly Marsh 5-01-2006
Every movement needs its revolutionaries and spokespersons, and in the growing crusade for a healthy, ethical, and “fair” food system, Bryant Terry and Anna Lappé happen to be both. Terry is a chef and founder of b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth)—a nonprofit group in New York that teaches low-income kids not only about nutrition, but also how to prepare healthy food themselves. Lappé is a writer, speaker, and co-founder (with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé) of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund. The latter supports grassroots efforts around the world that address the causes of hunger and poverty.
The two packed their passion and experience into Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, a practical book that explains why our food system is the way it is, but also what we can do to change it. And don’t be surprised if, along the way, you pick up a few tips about cooking (pepper grinders are key) and music (Césaria Évora is nice accompaniment to cinnamon-dusted sweet potato fries). Associate editor Molly Marsh spoke recently with the author-activists.
Sojourners: So why the name Grub? What is grub?
Bryant Terry: When Anna and I started working on this project, we had so many people tell us that healthy organic food is for wealthy baby boomers. That’s a common misconception. We wanted people to understand that grub—healthy, local, sustainable food—is food that’s accessible to everyone. It’s something all people have a right to.
Celeste Kennel-Shank 5-01-2006
Bumper stickers found in many college dormitories and church parking lots during the recent boycott of Taco Bell featured a Spanish-speaking Chihuahua—playing off the chain’s ads—turning down the fast- food chow to demand a penny more per pound for tomato pickers.
Heading the campaign was the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm worker-led organization based in Immokalee, Florida, with more than 2,500 members, most of whom are Latinos, Haitians, and Mayan Indians. The nearly four-year boycott put worker concerns—low wages, poor working conditions, and discrimination—in front of many consumers and led to an agreement with Yum! Brands, Taco Bell’s parent company.
The campaign is one of several recent examples of tapping into the power of consumers. Through education, boycotts, and other methods, farm workers can make those who eat the products they grow and pick aware of the conditions they experience—and ask for their help in changing those conditions.
“The life of an agricultural worker is one of exploitation,” said Lucas Benitez, a worker and organizer with the coalition who came to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager. Farm laborers work long hours, with no benefits, health care, or overtime pay, he said. “The imbalance of power is tremendous.”
The agreement reached by the coalition and Yum! Brands established important precedents of increasing wages coming down the supply chain and involving workers in the monitoring of conditions in the fields, said Brigitte Gynther, an organizer with the coalition. The change for workers has been immediate, Benitez said, after more than 20 years of receiving the same salary. Each week, he said, “depending on how much they harvest, they receive between $15 and $40 more.” Also essential, Gynther said, are the safeguards against what the coalition believes to be inhumane working conditions the pickers have suffered.
Dee Dee Risher 1-01-2005
For 40 years, The Other Side offered a vision of ‘justice rooted in discipleship.’
Duane Shank 6-01-2004
I first heard of William Sloane Coffin in 1967, when he was a leading spokesperson for "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority," a manifesto pledging to "counsel, aid, and abet" young men in resisting the draft. It made a strong impression on me and, with other influences, led to my refusing