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The Dorothy Day Award

Criteria

PEP has given out the Gandhi Peace Award since 1960 recognizing laureates for decades of peace or environmental work.  We have long thought of giving out another award, for a political prisoner, for someone in great danger, or someone involved in an important campaign.  In 2025 we established the "Dorothy Day Award" for that purpose.  Dorothy Day was a journalist, a Catholic reformer and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and winner of the 1975 Gandhi Peace Award. More about Dorothy Day below


Announcing the 2025 Award

Our inaugural award was given to Mahmoud Khalil the Columbia University graduate student who was abducted from his home by ICE and sent 1,000 miles away to a Louisiana prison.  Khalil was a leader in the protests movement at his university against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.  He is a Palestinian himself, a "green-card" hold and legal residents of the U.S.  He was born to a refugee family in Syria and made it to the U.S. through some 8 security checks.  The award this year comes with $1,000.


 Article about our 4/14/25 press conference which included remarks by Stanley Heller, Martha Hennessy (granddaughter of Dorothy Day), Mark Colville and Shelly Altman.


Click here for video of our whole press conference


Click here for Mahmoud Khalil's April 17 article in the Washington Post that he dictated from prison.


Excellent new film "The Encampments" features Mahmoud Khalil. Get it shown widely.


You can write to Mahmoud Khalil in ICE "detention" in Louisiana.  Here is the address:

 

Mahmoud Khalil

830 Pinehill Rd

Jena, LA 71342-4137 USA


May 2, 2025 article on Slate about Khalil and the ICE prison in Louisiana

About Dorothy Day

 Born in 1897, she began a journalism career as a teenager with socialist and communist newspapers. She was arrested at the White House with other feminists, and again in 1922 in an “anti-red” raid. She worked for newspapers in Chicago and New Orleans, sold an autobiographical novel to Hollywood, and became a single parent. While pregnant with her daughter she experienced a spiritual conversion. Seeking a vocation combining her political and religious convictions, she served on the staff of F.O.R. and in 1933 co-founded The Catholic Worker as a newspaper to promote pacifism and social justice, with the aim of uniting intellectuals and workers. She expanded it into a movement based on the literal interpretation of the Gospel, combining religious dedication and progressive action. She fed and clothed the hungry while educating the masses, attracting thousands of like-minded idealists to her operations in New York City. She preached simplicity, renunciation and service; she once said, “The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.” She never joined any political party. Often imprisoned for her peace, civil rights, and labor activities, she was jailed in 1973 after she was arrested with farmworkers led by César Chávez  struggling to win a union contract. She died in 1980 

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