Dorothy Day--'a saint for our times'

[bobbieinok]

42. I remembered someone important was connected to Day. His name finally came to me

Then I checked the internet.

I remember the massive attention The Other Anerica got.

Like many saidz at the time--You're just NOW discovering there are poor people in the US?!?!

Like by 62 everyone (ie, middle class and up) had forgotten James Agee's 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men* with its picyures of starving American children. Or (positive spin) they thought that was then, during the Great Depression. Things like that aren't happening today in 'the greatest country on earth, the leader of the free world, etc, etc.

I remember that the info in the book apparently came as a great surprise to a lot of peoplr.

BTW, his book The Politics at God's Funeral is really good.

*I think I first heard of/saw the pictures in this book when people were discussing The Other America.

Agee's son went with his mother and her 2nd husband to live in East Germany after WWII. Her husband was apparently idealistic and like many thought that the communists were going to create a new, progressive Germany. Agee's son wote a fascinating book about his life there with his mother and step-father and their
growing disillusionment with their adopted country.

The book is Twelve years: An American Boyhood in East Germany.