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June 29
Julia Lathrop and Stokely Carmichael
David Barnhart
June 29, 2025
Squash vine tendrils, 2025. Own photo.
Today is the birthday, in 1858, of Julia Lathrop, a social worker and reformer of juvenile justice. Like Jane Addams, her best friend, she was a resident of Hull House, where people were trying to live into a new way of being in community across class divides. She worked to abolish child labor and create public health insurance for children. She was the first head of the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Today is also the birthday, in 1941, of Stokely Carmichael, outspoken activist for Black Power who set the terms and created language for much of contemporary community organizing and decolonization work.
Reflection:
Julia Lathrop critiqued the way we tend to understand the economy:
Averages are like the economic man; they are inventions, not real. When applied to salaries they hide gaunt poverty at the lower end.
Calling people to be more empathetic in the creation of policy, she also said:
“The Justice of today is born of yesterday's pity.”
In Stokely Carmichael’s famous “Black Power” speech, he said this:
“They Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money -- period.”
He also wrote:
“Ultimately, the economic foundations of this country must be shaken if black people are to control their lives. The colonies of the United States—and this includes the black ghettoes within its borders, north and south—must be liberated. For a century, this nation has been like an octopus of exploitation, its tentacles stretching from Mississippi and Harlem to South America, the Middle East, southern Africa, and Vietnam; the form of exploitation varies from area to area but the essential result has been the same—a powerful few have been maintained and enriched at the expense of the poor and voiceless colored masses. This pattern must be broken.”
There has been plenty of evidence that a Universal Basic Income would be an effective way not only to address poverty, but inequality.
Prayer: Loving God, you command us to love our neighbor, but we pretend that we can love without addressing oppressive policy. Help us to love our neighbor not just with words, but with individual and corporate action. Help us to express our love in policy. Amen.