The Dorothy Day Award

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

 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